This large new series of repeating forms of a woman leaping is part of an exhibition I am preparing called "Dreaming Mutiny".
The previous "Angel in Everything" theme shifted at the end of last year to a body of sketches of repeated female forms laying in threatened, yet threatening positions.
I found myself using the female (androgynous) figure to express mutinous feelings about the body in society and the context in which we are living, and began to question many forms of oppression including those that are self-imposed resistances, censorship and prohibition.
The original sketches brought me to this sudden bold statement of the single figure to which I added the title "Revolting Pin-ups" - an attempt to elude every stereoptyical form of the male gaze - and which has now developed into a series.
The savage figure seems to encapsulate the power of what I have been trying to reclaim through the activity of drawing for the last two years, and that has eluded me so far.
It also, as Jules Beckman wrote in response to seeing the series for the first time:
"seeks to shake the viewer from slumber by means of shock of rupture with the ordinary, the exploded head evoking orgasm, the loss of self and merging with the All"
Graceful colours surround the figures with a smooth, finely executed appearance representing polite Englishness in opposition to the figure which "can be read as "plainly violent"
The series appears to be the same form repeated, but no marks resemble the others in any of the paintings.They are momentary impulses that climax into similar shapes but which are completely unique in nature.
"The dark with lightning bolts, veins of black light. The obliteration of the head speaks to a kind of spiritual annihilation of renunciation of the ego, a going beyond the self"
I hope this post has given you some insight into this current work.
I'm curious to know, what were your immediate interpretation of the pieces?
If you reply I would be delighted to exchange views.
Quotes : Jules Beckman notes on "Revolting Pin-ups"
Photo: Thierry Drosson