@annagarrettstudio - Instagram

Apparently it is good to have a presence on many social media outlets...

Updated Statement

My work suggests how ruin, garbage and the overlooked could reveal ‘truth’ within contemporary consumer culture. Ruin Lust consists of painterly emulations of a digitalised tropical sunset, with ruinous urban collage breaking the dreamy neon haze. Signs of the ‘paradise’ image and palm tree sight an escapism linked to tourism, compared with garbage- objects stripped of mystification. Touching upon the notion of the abject, the pieces allure to the seductive toxicity of consumer culture and its reality. The ‘stupefied, hyperreal euphoria’ (1) within the constructed advertising image is the core to my practice. I aim to investigate the dreamy aura of colours designed to compel and allure, signs and symbols placed to unlock desire in the glistening fake world. An optical seduction so unsatisfying the spectator cannot look away. I want to capture this ‘euphoria’, created by entertaining the pull of human desire in the post-internet world. I am evaluating the falsity of the image, using painting and collage to disrupt the false window in the spectacle.

(1) Jean Baudrillard, 1981

Sweet 'Art - on London Live TV

Showed work at the Espacio Gallery on Monday with Sweet 'Art, a fundraiser exhibition for the new charity Outskirts. Also featured on telly... on London Live: http://www.londonlive.co.uk/news/2015-12-21/paintings-at-fast-food-prices-at-the-art-takeaway 

Yes that is me wandering around!

Have a good Christmas all x

Work in Espacio Gallery and Lubomirov/Angus-Hughes Gallery

Works on paper, under £30 are being displayed at Espacio Gallery, Shoreditch, with Sweet 'Art, next week.

PV 21st December

Lubomirov/Angus-Hughes Gallery, Hackney, are holding their annual Xmas Bazaar. I have two works on display until Monday.

'glitter. garden. garbage.', Take Courage Gallery, New Cross

Clockwise from left: Moths vi, Failures, Moths i, One Man's Trash, Ruin Lust: Strawberry Fields. 

'glitter. garden. garbage.' installation

A few snaps of setting up yesterday.

Press Release, Take Courage Gallery

Press Release

Anna Garrett

glitter. garden. garbage.

Take Courage Gallery, Amersham Arms, New Cross

6 – 10 December 2015

Private View: Monday 7 December, 6.30-8pm

Anna Garrett presents two brand new works, an installation and sight specific sculpture, in solo show glitter. garden. garbage.

Failure and Moths iv combine notions of the deconstructed painting and painting as object, in addition to referencing Anna’s previous body of collage paintings: Ruin Lust. The pieces are broken yet seductive: Anna’s work suggests how ruin, garbage and the overlooked could reveal ‘truth’ within contemporary consumer culture.

The works question what a painting could be, blurring the boundaries between art and garbage. In Failures, the ruins of past paintings are hand-stitched unevenly, revealing the structure, stripping back the illusory window to the bones of the painting. Almost a ‘means of laying bare a truth buried beneath layers of false romantic aesthetics.’¹ Failures appears to be ‘unfinished’, touching the moment of near completion but sinking back into ruin.

Painterly, glittery and fluorescent, the abject surfaces are fragmented by ruinous urban collage. The push and pull allures to the seductive toxicity of consumer culture and its reality. Ruin Lust consists of painted emulations of a digitalised tropical sunset, often floral or with signs of the ‘paradise’ image linked to tourism; then broken by garbage, raw objects stripped of mystification.

1. Walter Benjamin, as quoted by Naomi Stead, 2003

ZAP Features

Each month Zeitgeist Arts Projects focus on three artists, and I am one of them for December. 

'glitter. garden. garbage.' solo show at Riverside Cafe Gallery

27 November- 4th December
PV Wednesday 2nd December, 6.30-8pm
Riverside Cafe Gallery, Farnham Maltings

http://craft.farnhammaltings.com/riverside-gallery-anna-garrett-glitter-garden-garbage/