PG: Parental Guidance
Eva Lis
5 March - 5 April 2009
curated by Chiara Williams & Debra Wilson
Some scenes may be unsuitable for parents. Unaccompanied parents of any age may view. PG should not disturb older parents, however parents should consider whether the content might upset them. Where more serious issues are featured e.g. abuse or violence, nothing in their treatment condones the behaviour. There is mild bad language and nudity. Sexual activity may be implied, but is discreet and infrequent. Violence without detail is present, but is justified by its context. There is no potential of dangerous behaviours that parents are likely to copy. Frightening sequences are not prolonged or intense.
A group show of painting, print, sculpture and video. Exhibiting artists are Jonathan Batten, Infinity Bunce, Matt Day, Jarik Jongman, Phil Illingworth, Eva Lis, Anita Makris, Enzo Marra, Farah Mohamed, Molly Smyth, Boa Swindler, Sardine & Tobleroni, Chiara Williams, Irlanda Zantone.
curated by Chiara Williams & Debra Wilson
Some scenes may be unsuitable for parents. Unaccompanied parents of any age may view. PG should not disturb older parents, however parents should consider whether the content might upset them. Where more serious issues are featured e.g. abuse or violence, nothing in their treatment condones the behaviour. There is mild bad language and nudity. Sexual activity may be implied, but is discreet and infrequent. Violence without detail is present, but is justified by its context. There is no potential of dangerous behaviours that parents are likely to copy. Frightening sequences are not prolonged or intense.
A group show of painting, print, sculpture and video. Exhibiting artists are Jonathan Batten, Infinity Bunce, Matt Day, Jarik Jongman, Phil Illingworth, Eva Lis, Anita Makris, Enzo Marra, Farah Mohamed, Molly Smyth, Boa Swindler, Sardine & Tobleroni, Chiara Williams, Irlanda Zantone.
"Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper" Friedrich NietzscheHow is it that history repeats itself through the generations and why do we often choose the most difficult paths? If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, are we all mad? In the absence or even defiance of guidance, to whom, what or where do we turn? Drugs, alcohol, religion, sex, and crime are contenders for some. The sanctity of marriage, Prozac, careers and children work for others. Whatever drives us is usually what we learned at home. In our formative years, our parents' or guardians' influence greatly affects the way in which we, as adults define ourselves. Our personal adventure can be as triumphant as an epic hero's journey, as dramatic as a Greek tragedy or as dull as dishwater. Puppets, dolls and playthings surface throughout this exhibition, references to a mythological archetype whose fate is dependent on the whims, fancies and petty rifts of the gods; children at the mercy of their family environment or pawns in a bigger game. Some of the works on show also delve into the darker side of Surrealism, an art given over to the uncanny, to the compulsion to rhetorical and painful repetition. In her object relations theory, Melanie Klein states that children are born with two primary drives: love and hate. All humans struggle throughout their lives to integrate both drives into constructive social interaction, and an important step in childhood development is the gradual depolarization of these two drives. 'Splitting' refers to the separation of the things the child loves (good, gratifying objects) and the things the child hates (bad, frustrating objects). Klein refers to these things as the good breast and the bad breast. The child sees the breasts as not just distinct and separate, but opposite, although they actually are united, since they both belong to one mother. When the child learns that people and objects can be good and bad at the same time, he or she progresses to the next developmental phase. This exhibition takes as its starting point a simple subversion of the parental role: "Some scenes may be unsuitable for parents." We are not simply being asked to consider our role models and the parental guidance we received, but a less comfortable reflection on who we as role models are, parents or not, and what our legacy might be in the constantly shifting ground of familial love and hate.
Artists
'Heil' by Sardine & Tobleroni
Sardine & Tobleroni
Good and bad, right and wrong, right and left are themes running through the work of Sardine & Tobleroni who each paint the right and left-hand sides of their paintings simultaneously. Their portraits Heil and £10,000, are part of The Star Series, in which 12 historical or contemporary figures are categorised as either good or bad depending on whether they are hung to the left (bad) or right (good). In the context of PG, these two portraits of Hitler and Mother Theresa are cast in the roles of the feared disciplinarian father and the comforting nurturer mother, extreme stereotypes of patriarchy and matriarchy. Sardine & Tobleroni are also exhibiting their Charity Shop series, for which they transform the content and appearance of second-hand, often infamous paintings, prints and posters and hang them with their original frames in a haphazard salon-style cluster. Narratives are perverted to sometimes disturbing lengths, so that previously innocuous pastoral scenes and depictions of children become 'sinister', which of course, as a linguistic aside, derives from the Latin, meaning 'left'.
Eva Lis
Lis' work Positive/Negative Polarities of Woman can be read as a Kleinian synthesis of good and bad. Mixing attraction and repulsion, the surrealist element is very charged in this unlikely bar of soap. Using the device of the familiar to evoke both an erotogenic body and a dismembered one, we see both the maternal, nurturing, and life-giving breast as well as an object of desire with its transient beauty and power of attraction. Just as the soap is handled and worn down, a woman's experience and worth can fade with her beauty and women often describe feeling gradually invisible as they age. This uncompromising work questions such assumptions.
Phil Illingworth
Like all opposites, parallels, oxymorons, twins, 'good' cannot exist without the mirroring concept of 'bad' or 'evil'. Throughout history, the role of Pope, spiritual father of the Roman Catholic Church, has been surrounded by controversy and conspiracy theories of a sometimes sinister variety. Phil Illingworth's Pope Paul VI Blows Their Minds at Monterey uses metaphors such as the voice of God (the speakers), the process of ceremonial worship (the burning guitar), the microphone (serpent) and the mic stand as a crucifix 'piercing' the heart of the Pope, to highlight the hypocrisy of the church and the rise of Celebrity as the new God and spiritual leader to the masses.
Boa Swindler
Upholding tradition, patriotism, family values, class and education are highly regarded in society, yet often we rebel against all of this. The rich like to slum it and the poor like to lord it, but the grass is rarely greener on the other side. In A Semi Hardy, Boa Swindler presents the monarchy as a symbol of Britishness, patriotism and tradition. Depicted as an antiquated, old-fashioned, worn-out institution and as mere nostalgia, Swindler considers the role of the monarch as defender of the faith(s) in modern multi-cultural British society. Three works in mixed media look at family and honour in different ways. In Unspeakable we are confronted with a toe-tagged foot and the word 'shamed', an uncomfortable reference to the consequences of family dishonour. Ronnie (Biggs, of Great Train Robbery notoriety) is 'wanted', a villain turned peoples' hero who sacrificed his freedom for prison in order to return to his beloved England. His son campaigns for his release. In Edie, the style icon and society heiress Edie Sedgwick is presented as 'damaged'. Once a role model, the only way for Edie to escape overbearing patriarchy and repetitive abuse was to tragically die young and stay pretty.
Good and bad, right and wrong, right and left are themes running through the work of Sardine & Tobleroni who each paint the right and left-hand sides of their paintings simultaneously. Their portraits Heil and £10,000, are part of The Star Series, in which 12 historical or contemporary figures are categorised as either good or bad depending on whether they are hung to the left (bad) or right (good). In the context of PG, these two portraits of Hitler and Mother Theresa are cast in the roles of the feared disciplinarian father and the comforting nurturer mother, extreme stereotypes of patriarchy and matriarchy. Sardine & Tobleroni are also exhibiting their Charity Shop series, for which they transform the content and appearance of second-hand, often infamous paintings, prints and posters and hang them with their original frames in a haphazard salon-style cluster. Narratives are perverted to sometimes disturbing lengths, so that previously innocuous pastoral scenes and depictions of children become 'sinister', which of course, as a linguistic aside, derives from the Latin, meaning 'left'.
Eva Lis
Lis' work Positive/Negative Polarities of Woman can be read as a Kleinian synthesis of good and bad. Mixing attraction and repulsion, the surrealist element is very charged in this unlikely bar of soap. Using the device of the familiar to evoke both an erotogenic body and a dismembered one, we see both the maternal, nurturing, and life-giving breast as well as an object of desire with its transient beauty and power of attraction. Just as the soap is handled and worn down, a woman's experience and worth can fade with her beauty and women often describe feeling gradually invisible as they age. This uncompromising work questions such assumptions.
Phil Illingworth
Like all opposites, parallels, oxymorons, twins, 'good' cannot exist without the mirroring concept of 'bad' or 'evil'. Throughout history, the role of Pope, spiritual father of the Roman Catholic Church, has been surrounded by controversy and conspiracy theories of a sometimes sinister variety. Phil Illingworth's Pope Paul VI Blows Their Minds at Monterey uses metaphors such as the voice of God (the speakers), the process of ceremonial worship (the burning guitar), the microphone (serpent) and the mic stand as a crucifix 'piercing' the heart of the Pope, to highlight the hypocrisy of the church and the rise of Celebrity as the new God and spiritual leader to the masses.
Boa Swindler
Upholding tradition, patriotism, family values, class and education are highly regarded in society, yet often we rebel against all of this. The rich like to slum it and the poor like to lord it, but the grass is rarely greener on the other side. In A Semi Hardy, Boa Swindler presents the monarchy as a symbol of Britishness, patriotism and tradition. Depicted as an antiquated, old-fashioned, worn-out institution and as mere nostalgia, Swindler considers the role of the monarch as defender of the faith(s) in modern multi-cultural British society. Three works in mixed media look at family and honour in different ways. In Unspeakable we are confronted with a toe-tagged foot and the word 'shamed', an uncomfortable reference to the consequences of family dishonour. Ronnie (Biggs, of Great Train Robbery notoriety) is 'wanted', a villain turned peoples' hero who sacrificed his freedom for prison in order to return to his beloved England. His son campaigns for his release. In Edie, the style icon and society heiress Edie Sedgwick is presented as 'damaged'. Once a role model, the only way for Edie to escape overbearing patriarchy and repetitive abuse was to tragically die young and stay pretty.
Jonathan Batten
Jonathan Batten
"The Cross is the approbation of our existence, not in words, but in an act so completely radical that it caused God to become flesh and pierced this flesh to the quick; that, to God, it was worth the death of his incarnate Son." Pope Benedict XVI
Batten's piece INRI is Christ depicted as a marionette puppet. With real hair and wounds that drip dyed red brandy, he hangs over a carved wooden font with a beaten metal bowl, having made the ultimate sacrifice.
Anita Makris
Makris presents a new film, Dear Father. Experiencing loneliness in a convent boarding school, a young girl longs for the warmth and comfort of her loving father to combat the coldness, dogmas and authoritarian religion of her restrictive environment. The father appears as abruptly in her life as he leaves it, protecting her briefly, but in fact needing protection from himself.
Matt Day
Day's sculptures have an eerie quality, reminiscent of carnival freaks, dolls with souls and stifled Victorian children that should be seen and not heard. One small female figure has no mouth but 'Beware the eyes that paralyze' (Children of the Damned). Unnatural and grotesque these caricatures could have borne silent witness to disturbed childhoods, carrying with them secrets and memories that are perhaps better left unearthed.
Enzo Marra
Too Much Too Young (He and She ) comments on the over-protectiveness of the nanny state society we live in and the natural curiosity of children. These two paintings of a girl and a boy carry added adult appendages that have a grotesque effect on the landscapes of their bodies, allowing us to question how childlike they actually are, where did they get this information and from whom.
Irlanda Zantone
In Intimo we are again confronted with the body of a woman and the mind of a child. A model poses expressionless against a backdrop of 'bad wallpaper', her translucent lingerie marks the death of innocence, while the expanse of over-painted, flat flesh refers to Manet's Olympia and the objectification of the female sex. In Sesso the irises twinkle and the lips glow behind a black mask surrounded by repetitive graphite scrawls "Sexy, sex, sex, sex, sex...lips...sex everywhere". Also peeping through the wash are blurred snatches of text that read 'beauty' and 'the creative mind'. Both works are about the damage wrought by low self-esteem and low self-worth, which can arise from early sexualisation. In both pieces the girls' inner beauty is contained, concealed and unexpressed.
Farah Mohamed
Made For Girls alludes to forbidden sex with partners that parents would disapprove of. The visual style created by filming in night vision and the sound of the shower and water dripping is a convenient camouflage for what is really going on here. As adults we become uncomfortable around our parents when confronted by sex. We sometimes feel the need to censor for them as they once did for us.
"The Cross is the approbation of our existence, not in words, but in an act so completely radical that it caused God to become flesh and pierced this flesh to the quick; that, to God, it was worth the death of his incarnate Son." Pope Benedict XVI
Batten's piece INRI is Christ depicted as a marionette puppet. With real hair and wounds that drip dyed red brandy, he hangs over a carved wooden font with a beaten metal bowl, having made the ultimate sacrifice.
Anita Makris
Makris presents a new film, Dear Father. Experiencing loneliness in a convent boarding school, a young girl longs for the warmth and comfort of her loving father to combat the coldness, dogmas and authoritarian religion of her restrictive environment. The father appears as abruptly in her life as he leaves it, protecting her briefly, but in fact needing protection from himself.
Matt Day
Day's sculptures have an eerie quality, reminiscent of carnival freaks, dolls with souls and stifled Victorian children that should be seen and not heard. One small female figure has no mouth but 'Beware the eyes that paralyze' (Children of the Damned). Unnatural and grotesque these caricatures could have borne silent witness to disturbed childhoods, carrying with them secrets and memories that are perhaps better left unearthed.
Enzo Marra
Too Much Too Young (He and She ) comments on the over-protectiveness of the nanny state society we live in and the natural curiosity of children. These two paintings of a girl and a boy carry added adult appendages that have a grotesque effect on the landscapes of their bodies, allowing us to question how childlike they actually are, where did they get this information and from whom.
Irlanda Zantone
In Intimo we are again confronted with the body of a woman and the mind of a child. A model poses expressionless against a backdrop of 'bad wallpaper', her translucent lingerie marks the death of innocence, while the expanse of over-painted, flat flesh refers to Manet's Olympia and the objectification of the female sex. In Sesso the irises twinkle and the lips glow behind a black mask surrounded by repetitive graphite scrawls "Sexy, sex, sex, sex, sex...lips...sex everywhere". Also peeping through the wash are blurred snatches of text that read 'beauty' and 'the creative mind'. Both works are about the damage wrought by low self-esteem and low self-worth, which can arise from early sexualisation. In both pieces the girls' inner beauty is contained, concealed and unexpressed.
Farah Mohamed
Made For Girls alludes to forbidden sex with partners that parents would disapprove of. The visual style created by filming in night vision and the sound of the shower and water dripping is a convenient camouflage for what is really going on here. As adults we become uncomfortable around our parents when confronted by sex. We sometimes feel the need to censor for them as they once did for us.
Chiara Williams
Chiara Williams
A bizarre pound-shop find is the basis of Just what is it that makes today's bathrooms so different, so appealing? This strange hybrid object is a ceramic sculpture, boxed and framed, both the bathroom from a doll's house and an 'art work' to be hung on a wall. Within the home the bathroom is a shared family space, but also a place of privacy and intimacy, a place where we are naked and vulnerable, where we can confront, cleanse and purge our physical selves. Williams covered the entire surface of the ready-made, first in flesh tint paint and then with hair. Although the bathroom is empty, we are voyeurs into this private domestic space, participants before this strange stage set. Here the flesh colour makes us aware of our own nakedness, as if our own privacy has been invaded. Hair, human or otherwise always repels and disgusts. Once defiled, we aren't always able to wash ourselves clean.
Jarik Jongman
I Came Like Water And Like Wind I Go consists of four ethereal works reflecting on Jongman's ancestory and family tree. The artist arranged and scattered groups of family photos deep in a forest, among branches and roots, he then photographed these compositions, printed them large scale and then painted into and reworked them. They evoke associations with traces left behind or tracks left to follow. Both dramatic and uplifting, the work alludes to the transience of man's brief existence and the realisation that people have the potential to comfort and inspire long after they are gone.
Molly Smyth
There is a thematic dialogue between the subversion of the parental role in the exhibition as a whole and the miniature scale and desiccated appearance of the mother figure in Figure on Tower. The pregnant female is made of masking tape and sits on a totemic column made from roll upon roll of masking tape. Each reel is meticulously carved with ‘play', ‘pause', ‘forward' and ‘rewind' buttons, as if the pillar were an archaeological relic from the analogue age. There is no ‘stop' button for this tiny figure. She becomes a kind of timeless fertility symbol and mythical goddess, at once sitting on the pedestal of time and at the mercy of nature, taking its course.
IInfinity Bunce
Bunce's triptych Amber 1, 2 & 3 are paintings made from photographs taken by and of her daughter Amber. The scenes are reminiscent of both urban graffiti and the graphic novel. For Bunce, the process recalled memories of time spent on her own youthful voyage of discovery and provided the artist with a renewed understanding of what her daughter is going through now. The collaborative process enabled her daughter to project her own sense of identity by casting herself as heroine.
A bizarre pound-shop find is the basis of Just what is it that makes today's bathrooms so different, so appealing? This strange hybrid object is a ceramic sculpture, boxed and framed, both the bathroom from a doll's house and an 'art work' to be hung on a wall. Within the home the bathroom is a shared family space, but also a place of privacy and intimacy, a place where we are naked and vulnerable, where we can confront, cleanse and purge our physical selves. Williams covered the entire surface of the ready-made, first in flesh tint paint and then with hair. Although the bathroom is empty, we are voyeurs into this private domestic space, participants before this strange stage set. Here the flesh colour makes us aware of our own nakedness, as if our own privacy has been invaded. Hair, human or otherwise always repels and disgusts. Once defiled, we aren't always able to wash ourselves clean.
Jarik Jongman
I Came Like Water And Like Wind I Go consists of four ethereal works reflecting on Jongman's ancestory and family tree. The artist arranged and scattered groups of family photos deep in a forest, among branches and roots, he then photographed these compositions, printed them large scale and then painted into and reworked them. They evoke associations with traces left behind or tracks left to follow. Both dramatic and uplifting, the work alludes to the transience of man's brief existence and the realisation that people have the potential to comfort and inspire long after they are gone.
Molly Smyth
There is a thematic dialogue between the subversion of the parental role in the exhibition as a whole and the miniature scale and desiccated appearance of the mother figure in Figure on Tower. The pregnant female is made of masking tape and sits on a totemic column made from roll upon roll of masking tape. Each reel is meticulously carved with ‘play', ‘pause', ‘forward' and ‘rewind' buttons, as if the pillar were an archaeological relic from the analogue age. There is no ‘stop' button for this tiny figure. She becomes a kind of timeless fertility symbol and mythical goddess, at once sitting on the pedestal of time and at the mercy of nature, taking its course.
IInfinity Bunce
Bunce's triptych Amber 1, 2 & 3 are paintings made from photographs taken by and of her daughter Amber. The scenes are reminiscent of both urban graffiti and the graphic novel. For Bunce, the process recalled memories of time spent on her own youthful voyage of discovery and provided the artist with a renewed understanding of what her daughter is going through now. The collaborative process enabled her daughter to project her own sense of identity by casting herself as heroine.
