Fluid. Feminine. Unrestrained. - installation shots

Freya Douglas Ferguson, Anna Garrett, Caroline Milster
no format Gallery, Deptford, London
31 Jan - 03 Feb 2018

group show opening night

Fluid. Feminine. Unrestrained. - Private View 

Weds 31 Jan 2018, 6-8.30pm

Acrylic and watercolour on paper 30 x 40cm, 2017
Installed at Fluid. Feminine. Unrestrained., no format Gallery, 2018

Artist Statement - Fluid. Feminine. Unrestrained.

The artists’ approaches to temporal forms of making vary. Bringing fleshy installations into the gallery space, Freya Douglas Ferguson pulls apart feminine stereotypes, as ‘theatricalities of the flesh.’ Through wax, resin, latex, plaster and a host of other materials, Freya assumes a contemporary approach to the ‘classical’ female nude. This methodology is echoed in film DAMAR by Caroline Milster. The repowering of the feminine as ontological sensual subject, repurposes the woman figure yet suggests a pedological ‘wild woman’ as animal. The suggested ‘other’ combines the hypnotic drum beat with unpredictable bodily movement. The wilderness as theatre is echoed in Anna Garrett’s raw neon paintings. Loose and dripping abstractions suggest the forms of plants and undergrowth at night: fluorescent creeper brushstrokes in darkness. An other-worldly existence in nature is suggested through gestural painterly presence of the artist, almost an overwhelming and fleshy use of colour.

“This is no longer a forest, but a forest of silhouettes, two-dimensional cut-outs of unnerving beauty, all form, so purely form that form collapses into effervescence…” M. Taussig

Being physically swamped, absorbed, consumed, dwarfed by plants and nature informs Anna Garrett's paintings. Remaining deceptively flirtatious: Anna’s interest lies in the power of nature and wilderness, seductive yet potentially dangerous.

Her research interest lies in the concept of ‘the other’, as coined by De Beauvoir, and how this has been historically attributed to the feminine and nature, opposed to civilisation. Questioning this dialectical condition, Anna’s paintings dissect what is means to relate visceral colour and contemporary femininity, as well as abjectivity of paint as fluid, particularly within a fluorescent colour palette.

Toxic and artificial neons run uninhibited over borders of glowing canvas, yet suggested darkness leaves a trace of ‘other’. The excessive saturation and intensification of colour, particularly in Painting with Urgency, suggests a sensual painterly moment and bodily presence of the artist.

Anna Garrett is currently studying MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, having graduated with a First Class Honours in BA Fine Art, from the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, in 2014. She has exhibited in many group shows across the UK and internationally, including solo exhibitions glitter. garden. garbage., Take Courage Gallery, New Cross, London, 2015, and Fluore$cent, Footfall Art, Bermondsey, London, 2014. Anna was selected as finalist for UKYA Festival Derby, 2016, and Zealous Art Prize, 2016. In 2017 the artist undertook two residencies, at Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden, and collaboratively with artist Charlie Betts, at Watts Gallery Artist Village.

www.annagarrett.co.uk

@annagarrettstudio

Image: Pretty Monstrous, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 180cm, 2017. Installed at Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden