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