Piece by piece, strand by strand, they will all be gone and then there’ll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. (detail) acrylic on canvas 2018
6th July – 27th August 2018
Private Views
Thursday 6th Septembery 6.30 –8.30pm
Sunday 9th July 12.00 –3.00pm
Thursday 27th Septembery 6.30 –8.30pm
Visitors with long hair are requested to incorporate a plait of their choice
Open Days
Wednesdays 12.00 – 6.00pm
Viewing by appointment at other times.
For further information contact Jonathan Ross: Phone 07747 807576
or jross@gallery286.com
Through the use of drawing, painting, intricate patterns and interconnected lines, I create an idealised space that becomes a stage set for contemporary plays. These plays are built upon a structure of personal experiences, memory, observation and cinematic references. It is narrated from the view point of a group of re-occuring motifs – female protagonists who are in – meshed, and joined one by one, rather like a mosaic. these girls are knotted and patched together by braided hair and are stitched in at the waist like siamese twins referencing patchwork quilts from the 1800s. The girls gather together in a setting of an almost idealised past – where time has ceased to move on and they hover tangibly between elements of observational and imaginative line work. Here the women begin to conceive life as a fabric of relations and they look at the latent structure that rules them. Recently this structure has been built upon themes of sexuality, religion, religious folklore, female hysteria, and the rituals that women out of hope and longing adorn. These ceremonial rites include rituals from the past – such as only being allowed to cut your hair on the day a full moon falls, or ancient fertility rituals. I compare these to the modern day ceremonies that have been fostered in our hyper – sexualised, instagramable world and I hope to give a glimmering insight into the mounting tension and the unwholesome intensity of what the imprisonment of being a girl really is.
The women profiled in the works will all hail from different walks of life and social class and so I feel the paintings will create a sense of belonging, they will construct a narrative about journey, spirit and how women become inextricably linked.
