LONG X BOY EXHIBITION PHOTOS

AS MANY OF OUR AVID READERS ARE PROBABLY AWARE, WE ARE MASSIVE FANS OF PUNK HERE AT AGENT2 AND THE FANTASTIC COLLABORATION BETWEEN LONG CLOTHING AND BOY LONDON IS NO EXCEPTION!

We just had to bring you these amazing images from a series of shots by London photographer Teddy Fitzhugh that were taken to celebrate the Long x Boy collaboration earlier this year.

The collection focuses around a group of friends whose lives embody a distinct attitude and spirit found in both brands. The photos intend to provide a reflection, not only of their relationships with each other, but also of the distinct connection between the clothing and their lifestyles.

Check out the rest of the series here.

leavetheboyalone.com | longclothing.com

 

 

 

PANDEMONIA PANACEA

IF YOU WERE AT LONDON FASHION WEEK THIS FEBRUARY, YOU’RE PROBABLY AWARE OF PANDEMONIA. AS A 7FT TALL, LATEX COVERED, CARTOONISH CHARACTER, SHE’S SOMEWHAT DIFFICULT TO MISS. ALTHOUGH SHE’S SEEMINGLY EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW, LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT THIS SELF MADE CELEBRITY. IS SHE A LIVING HOMAGE TO THE POP ART MOVEMENT, A WAY OF COMMENTING ON CONSUMER CULTURE, A PR EXERCISE IN BRANDING? AGENT2 TALKED TO HER TO SEE IF WE COULD GET TO THE BOTTOM OF MYSTERY.

There’s a huge amount of discussion surrounding what Pandemonia stands for and what you’re trying to say. Are you making a fixed statement or are you open to interpretation?

Discussion is a good thing. Traditionally, art is illusive; does any one know the meaning of Mona Lisa’s smile and isn’t it all ‘in the eye of the beholder’ anyway? Can a person be a statement? Pandemonia is a cartoon reflection of metropolitan life in the 21st Century.

You talk about products being the new celebrities: conversely, how much do you think celebrities have become a product or brand themselves? Is your plastic nature a commentary on this?

Products hold the real power and celebrities are products in the media. Being a celebrity you have to manage your image in exactly the same way as a brand does.  It’s only the branding that distinguishes one thing from another.

Presentation means everything and it all comes wrapped in plastic.  Who needs content when the surface says it all? Commodities are no longer just things of use: they have become part of what we are. I went straight for that laminated look.

You’re placing yourself in the public eye in a huge way, but remaining anonymous at the same time. How do you deal with this duality and is it a deliberate comment on celebrity?

There’s nothing new about anonymity and being in the public eye. Just look at all the advertising.  Those images are flawless, and you can’t get beyond the surface.

I live beyond my self as an act of self creation. I’m a conceptual artist presenting the concept of  “A Pop Up Celebrity”.   Like an advert, I am another image in the media. Pandemonia is a story with legs and mysteries make good copy.

You’ve talked about being the creation of the ideal female shape – blonde, leggy, thin. Are you deriding society’s obsession with feminine perfection or are you part of it?

I’m just as influenced by the current aesthetics as anyone else. I take everything at face value.

The nature of Pandemonia means that you’ll never age – you’ll forever be shiny and new. Are you therefore the ultimate celebrity? 

Yes! I’ve taken it to its ultimate conclusion as another pre-packaged multi platform commodity. I work well in print, web, moving image and reality. Its catch up time for the cosmetics industry, they’ve missed a trick or two.

Would you say that becoming part of celebrity culture is the best way to comment on it, or is your immersion into the ‘it crowd’ just a way of getting yourself and your work known? 

Definitely! I place myself in the public eye so that I have a bigger impact on objective culture. News is spread in the market place. Celebrities make good press and people relate to them so being one of them is like giving your ideas a free ride. In the glossiest of magazines my ideas get exhibited right next to their influences. And of course the ready made audience is a big bonus. You can’t just buy PR like that!

Are you ever going to reveal what’s behind the latex?

There’s nothing there; isn’t that the point?

Finally, why Pandemonia?

Pandemonium means chaos. In Milton’s Paradise Lost Pandemonium was a palace of gold built by Mammon. All that glitters is not gold.

www.pandemonia99.com

Interview Tamsin Worrad

TOMORROW YOU WILL LOVE A DIFFERENT STAR

THE PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE OF KONRAD WYREBEK CONTRAST HYPER-REAL COLOUR WITH TWISTING DARK-DEPTHS. FROM CELEBRITIES AND THEIR MODEL BOYFRIENDS TO A PENTAGRAM BASED SHRINE TO BEYONCE, THIS APPEARS TO BE ART ABOUT IDENTITY IN AN IMAGE BASED CULTURE – UNTIL YOU’RE PULLED BENEATH THAT ALLURING SURFACE. 

Though much of your work has a surface edge of celebrity or fashion, it is cut with challenging currents that make it hard to pin down.  Would you say there’s any dominant theme at play?

Above all I’m interested in idealised worlds. Many of my works – including the new circular paintings – feature hyper-bright colours that to me represent dreams, targets and ambitions. I think that often these aims are impossible ideals of perfection, so it’s important to me that the zones are faded into each other; elusive. Our ambitions are the same: what we aim for can quickly become somewhere else.

There are shadows in the glamour in though – through use of monochrome and twisted or deformed paint-strokes and also some threateningly ambiguous situations.

In a lot of my work  - such as the Paintings ‘Young Slaves’ and the sculpture ‘Three Graces’ – I’m exploring the possibility that the ideals we’re aiming for can enslave us. Our culture places high value on celebrity, fashion, youth and beauty. Super-perfect images and messages – celebrating and advertising these targets – are all around us. I think our attempts to attain at least some of that ‘perfection’, whether through shopping, sex or body transformation or whatever, can trap us in. We can end up in prisons of work, debt and limited ways of thinking.

What’s your process – from inspiration to finished piece?

Well, I work across different practices  - painting, sculpture and digital so it varies a lot. But often I use the unreal images of fashion editorial and advertising as a starting point. I search through magazines, papers and online sources like blogs and websites with fashion and lifestyle shoots. Sometimes I get them off Facebook too.

I’m seeking out images that, to me, say something about the times and our culture – that have a potential to open a dialogue and question the nature and value of the world we exist in. As much as I can see a dark-side to the kind of craving and ambition these kind of fashion and celebrity images can provoke I‘m also, like most of us, attracted to them.  So in a way, with paintings such as the diptych ‘We are Slaves to the World that Doesn’t Exist’ and ‘Ideal Five Rings Target Circle’ I’m trying to make sense of my interest in them and also investigating the ambiguous meanings in the images. So with ‘Ideal Five Rings Target Circle’ I’m trying to capture the uncertain quality; whether that boy’s S+M mask accessory is trapping him in a magazine page – or someone else’s borrowed idea of a sex prison.

The painting ‘Beyonce Is New Black Madonna’ is the centrepiece of a pentagram installation, that has echoes of Russian constructivism as well as creating an shrine-like impact. Is there a darker meaning to the pentagram?

In European culture and Christian-based society, I read the pentagram as a symbol of anti-religion. But it can also be also read as a new religion – the birth of new beliefs through the negation of an old one. So with that work I built up almost an altar-like installation with an oil painting of celebrity in an iconic pose. She’s a goddess for many.

She’s an icon.  The title says the rest.

   

See Konrad Wyrebek’s work in a show curated by Michael Petry at:

Clifford Chance Collection, 10 Upper Bank Street, Canary Wharf, London E14 5JJ.
Tel: 020 7006 1000. Opens to public 17 June-31 July 2011.

 

RICHIE CULVER AT LN-CC

LATE NIGHT CHAMELEON CAFÉ – OR LN-CC – PRESENTS THEIR FIRST ART EVENT THIS WEEK WITH ‘TOO DARK ONE LIGHT’;  A SOLO EXHIBITION OF NEW WORK BY ARTIST RICHIE CULVER.

The London based concept store will launch their gallery space with a show by Richie Culver - a series of new paintings, collages and mixed-media installations that sees Culver continue to explore the themes of love, loss and communication.

Beginning his artistic journey at the Tate Modern when one of his very first pieces ‘Jesse Owens’ (Have You Ever Loved Anyone) was hung in the Turbine Hall, Culver attracted the attention of the art world, with his first solo show turning London industry heads. His work is heavily autobiographical and Culver is one of those rare fiercely honest artists. Inspired by his own experiences he creates pieces that invite the viewer to share emotional, private and often pivotal moments in his life.

Highlights of the exhibition include ‘Quiet as you go up the stairs, my dad’s got a bad back’ and ‘I Loved You’ which relates to the artist’s attempts to communicate with an ex-girlfriend after the relationship fell apart, by spraying these words on her new home.

Throughout the exhibition the subject of attempted communication following a loss recurs and is particularly apparent in a series made from found Ouija boards. The series illustrates the universal struggle with grief, and the longing to maintain a relationship with those passed – both metaphorically and literally. Using his life as a tool for illustration, Culver offers the viewer a chance to reflect on their own experiences and emotions.

‘Too Dark One Light’ will run in store at LN-CC from 16 June until 7 July 2011 with an opportunity to view and purchase artwork. Open 7 days a week, by appointment only, contact appointments@ln-cc.com. See www.ln-cc.com.

 

VAUXHALL ART CAR BOOT FAIR

Turps Banana

NOW IN ITS SEVENTH YEAR AND RETURNING FOR ITS MOST CREATIVE EVENT YET, THE VAUXHALL ART CAR BOOT FAIR ANNOUNCES AN ENVIABLE LINE UP OF TALENTED ARTISTS, FASHION DESIGNERS AND FABULOUS PERFORMERS.

This year, just for the day, TURPS Banana – an innovative and highly collectable painting magazine – will collaborate with art world legends Damien Hirst, Marcus Harvey, Ryan Mosley and the Chapman Brothers to present 75 limited edition prints each. At an incredible price of between £200 – £300 for every piece, get down early to secure a coveted piece of art.

Julia Royse, independent curator and director of POSTED will be collaborating with emerging artist duo ‘The Girls’ to transform a Vauxhall postal van into a shrine to our wonderful postal heritage selling beautiful stationery created by artists including Tracey Emin. The editors of Five Dials magazine and Penguin Classics will be collaborating to create their next edition from scratch, live from the back of a fantastic vintage Vauxhall.

Get down early to nab one of Sir Peter Blake’s unique limited edition prints or to be in with a chance of buying works from 2010 Turner Prize winner Angela De La Cruz, being sold by Jane Simpson. Boot fair regular Pam Hogg will be launching her new limited edition tax disc holders for Pretty Taxing: Road Hogg.

Between haggling for bargains, you can join the Cinemoi Can Can Girls and smash some crockery at their Boules in a China Shop or turn yourself into a human snow shaker with the help of Lucy Parker and iconic Vivienne Westwood model Sarah Stockbridge. Artist Marty Thornton will be presenting a deliciously camp and glittery Big Fat Gypsy Fortune Teller, who will be in the back of a van (complete with light-up wedding dress). A new addition to this year’s event is The Art Improvement Clinic, visitors to the event are welcomed to bring along any piece of art they don’t like and have it ‘improved’ by a team of both famous and emerging talents.

The 2011 East London event will include top named talents including, Gavin Turk, Bob and Roberta Smith, Oliver Guy Watkins, Jessica Voorsanger, Pure Evil, Pete Fowler, Jessica Albarn, and Guts for Garters who will all be selling works of art from their own car boots.

Browsing for art bargains is not the only attraction of the day, with delicious food and drink available courtesy of St John’s Bread and Wine’s famous ox-heart buns and the Southampton Arms, along with entertainment from the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and A Band on a Car, plus lots of opportunities to get stuck into some artistic endeavours of your own.

For more information visit;  www.artcarbootfair.com.

 

FRANÇOISE NIELLY

FRENCH ARTIST FRANCOISE NIELLY IS NO STRANGER TO GRAND SCALE.  HER MASSIVE, VIBRANT, ILLUMINATING PORTRAITS ARE BLINDINGLY BEAUTIFUL TO LOOK AT.  AS A PAINTER MYSELF I WATCHED IN AWE AT THE VIDEO POSTED TO HER OWN SITE AS SHE CREATED ONE OF HER MAGNIFICENT PIECES.  WIELDING HER PAINTING KNIFE WITH SUCH A STRONG AND COMMANDING CONFIDENCE SHE WAVED HER COMPOSITION TO LIFE AS A MAESTRO DOES HIS ORCHESTRA.

With this image fresh in my mind, I managed to grab a few minutes with Françoise to discuss what influences impacted on the work we see her creating today and what we can expect from her in the future.

You are originally from Marseilles in the south of France. How much has this city influenced the very pure colour palette you use in your work?

I got into the habit of saying that the Mediterranean sea and its powerful contrasts has had a tremendous influence on my work; but to be honest, I think that even if I had lived in the north of Alaska, colours would have found me eventually.

You used to be a photographer as well as an illustrator in the world of advertising. At what moment did you throw the towel in and decide to abandon your profession to become a painter?

It was a mutual abandonment, it’s the way life works, like love stories…

How many elements from your previous jobs have you kept to utilise in your work as a studio artist?

I kept everything. All elements add up and contribute to my artistic approach and my personal evolution.

You have lived in many different European and North American cities such as Vancouver and New York before settling down in Paris. New York has a reputation for being exciting but demanding as opposed to Vancouver, which is famous for being picturesque and laidback.

Have you modelled your current life to certain characteristics of your former life in New York or Vancouver?

My childhood on the South Coast was followed by 10 years in the French countryside before settling in Paris 20 years ago. And of course, there were my experiences abroad. It’s difficult to say how they influenced me. My work is filled with mixed crossings and meetings. I keep great memories of Vancouver; it’s in my eyes, the most beautiful city that I have seen. New York is as pretty and more fascinating than in the movies. I adore the Americans. France is also pretty but temperamental.

Your paintings are often described as being carnal, sensual and even sexual, with biting intensity. Are you working on sketches before attacking a canvas or are you working with intuition only?

No, I work with intuition, without a net. I throw myself within the white of the canvas and it’s an intense experience, desirable and formidable. It’s a combination of conflicting and complementary internal movements; excitement, anxiety, pleasure, vertigo, attraction, doubt and acceleration. It’s always breathtaking.

Your choices of colours do not lack any brilliance and I imagine you mix your pigments yourself. Have you ever tried acrylic paint and disliked it or is there any particular reason why you work exclusively with oil paint?

Oil paint is mandatory when you use as many layers as me and when playing with transparency. For these reasons, acrylic paint doesn’t interest me. Only oil paint allows me to create what I am trying to deliver. Yes, I do my colour mixings myself and it’s a very important step in my method. You need to imagine that my palette takes the whole size of a table and I don’t mean a side table.

I have heard you are planning a new clothing collection.  Can this and more be expected in 2011?

A new collection of silk scarves is in the planning. For the clothes, there are no concrete plans yet. Ideas yes. I have many ideas but not only about a clothing collection. A journey to Australia is on the cards for 2011.

www.francoise-nielly.com

This interview was originally conducted in french.

Words Vincent Bernier

TIM BURTON EXHIBITION AT MOMA

TAKING INSPIRATION FROM SOURCES IN POP CULTURE, TIM BURTON HAS REINVENTED HOLLYWOOD GENRE FILMMAKING AS A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, INFLUENCING A GENERATION OF YOUNG ARTISTS WORKING IN FILM, VIDEO AND GRAPHICS.

America’s premier modern art gallery, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is hosting an exhibition of 700 drawings, paintings and sculptures and other paraphernalia – with pieces dating back to early childhood drawings- all by Burton. Following the current of his visual imagination right through to his latest work, the exhibition presents artwork generated during the conception and production of his films, his earliest non-professional films and student art.

In addition Burton’s entire cinematic oeuvre of 14 feature films will screen over the course of the five-month exhibition in the Museum’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters: Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney Todd (2007). His early short films Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984) will also be screened.

The exhibition will be at MoMA, New York from November 22, 2009 – April 26, 2010.

Burton is an acclaimed filmmaker, attending the California Institute of the Art. He was quickly drafted in to join the Disney animation ranks. But Burton was not suited to animation; they made him a conceptual artist. His concept drawings didn’t go down well as they were far too dark and twisted for the standard Disney fare. However, he soon set tow rok on his own projects. His early films were all mildly successful, but it was 1989’s Batman that made industry insiders sit up and take note.

Edward Scissorhands (1990) was the first time Burton had full creative control over a feature film; having written the story and also produced the movie. The film was a hit with filmgoers and critics alike, and, significantly, marked the beginning of Burton being taken seriously as an artist. His darkly surreal vision had returned audiences back to their own childhood vulnerability and in the process, created a modern fairy tale.

He has continued this tradition with stop-motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Corpse Bride (2005), none of which did anything to dispel the image of Burton as a slightly macabre figure. Having once said, “I’ve always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they’d still say I’m a dark personality,” he is further than ever from shaking off his ghoulish image, if the title sequence of 2007’s winter blockbuster, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is anything to go by.

Burton has also dabbled in poetry. His first ever film, Vincent, was in fact was based on a poem Burton had written himself. The short film tells the sad tale of Vincent Malloy, a suburban child who wants to be just like his idol, Vincent Price. Burton’s illustrated collection of poetry The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories (1997), gave birth to a wide variety of loveably macabre characters, such as ‘Oyster Boy’, a baby born as an oyster because his parents ate one too many of the salty dish and ‘Stain Boy’ whose superpower is to leave behind a filthy stain.

These intriguing characters are sure to be an indication of what to expect from Burton’s artworks, with curators already hailing him ‘the next Warhol.’ Deserved praise? We think so.

Words Almaz Ohene

RAIF ADELBERG – ALL I HAVE ARE MY DREAMS

IT IS THE DAY BEFORE RAIF ADELBERG’S ANTICIPATED PHOTO SHOOT FOR THE AW09 LOOK BOOK FOR RAIF, THE CLOTHING LINE; MODELS ARE FLYING AROUND GETTING FITTED, MAKE-UP ARTISTS ARE LISTENING TO RAIF’S CONCEPT FOR HIS CLOWN INSPIRED SERIES AND HE IS LAUGHING WITH POTENTIAL COLLABORATORS, PASSING OUT CANS OF PABST BLUE RIBBON AND EXPLAINING HIS ART DIRECTION. THERE ARE NO VISIBLE SIGNS OF STRESS ON THIS HIS FACE. AND WHY SHOULD THERE BE? RAIF ADELBERG IS AN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED FASHION DESIGNER BORN TO A FASHION MANUFACTURER AND AN ART COLLECTOR. THIS LIFESTYLE, FULL OF COLOUR, CREATIVITY AND THE LAST-MINUTE RUSH, IS ALL HE KNOWS.

Responsible for fashion lines RICHARD KIDD, Naked, RAIF, and Dead Boys Club House, his new body of work follows the pressure and anticipation you’d expect from a highly-acclaimed designer. Yet as he prepares to open ++ALL I HAVE ARE MY DREAMS++, his first photographic exhibition in London, Raif remains as calm and collected as someone you know this lifestyle comes naturally to.

Adelberg lives and breathes creativity. He claims that what he does is not work; it’s just what he does. And for this Canadian born trick-of-all-trades, the Railtown Studio in Vancouver, is where he does. Masterminding with clothes, words, paintings and photos, he is revolutionising the fashion industry. His production refines, fixes, recalls and erases bits of art and fashion history into something the artist /designer decides is a more truthful, personalised representation of popular culture.

Through art, design and photography he transforms a military jacket into a jilted lover’s revenge story called, ”REVENGE FUCK.” He illustrates an agency model with a clown face, draped in an American flag and crying black tears associated with prison time, and in “SEARCH & Destroy in DCBH,” he depicts Adolph Hitler laughing with a clown.

Every action, thought, word and image stems from his analysis on identity. He wants to characterise, through clothes, photos and paintings, what influences our identity and how we live within our own limitations; for each man, father, Jew, German, American, artist, and indeed, clothing designer. His work is giving the audience a depiction of humans and letting them interpret it as they will.

The canvas of tattoos that transform Adelberg’s body into a conceptual entity tells a story of his life and loves. Raif has used his own skin as canvas for his unbridled creativity; exhibiting his philosophy of life through illustration. Tattoos, like the high collars, ruffles and high-waist jodhpurs of Quentin Crisp and Oscar Wild, are a sign of self-worship; a defence against suffering and a celebration of life.

If all of this analysis is too heavy, the considerate artist adds levity to the depth of his emotion by fusing all the images together with pop music references, the greatest social equaliser.  Examples include, “Baby I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney, and, “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison, acting as inspiration for his photographic collection, ++ALL I HAVE ARE MY DREAMS++.

The amount of work produced at the studio from day to day is mind boggling. He allows for no separation between the artist, the designer, the clothes, the artwork; everything, including conversation, is approached with a curiosity and collaboration that characterises Raif’s creative process, saying himself: “Intensity is my normal resting place.”

The need to communicate and to make sense of life spills out of everything about Raif Adelberg. You get the feeling when you are in his studio that he is still looking for the perfect medium, one that

will satisfy his need to uncover life the way it is supposed to be lived.

An interview with Raif is next to impossible; the direct approach will take you in a circle of riddles. For any satisfaction or closure, you must answer the questions yourself, using his designs as inspiration for questioning, theorising and concluding.

He is asking you to be responsible for your own feelings, thoughts and ideas about what you see around you.  And of course, to use his tools to make up your mind for yourself. He’s just making pictures, designing clothes and talking to people.

Words Maeve Doyle Editor Natasha Al-Atassi  Images Raif Adelberg

DOYLE DEVERE presents:

+ALL I HAVE ARE MY DREAMS++ original photographs by Raif Adelberg
30 Ledbury Road, London, W11 2AB

Tel: 07889 182757

THE EARLEY DAYS; TALENT FROM WAY BACK WHEN

Walk through a hall of mirrors and pass by the one that turns you into a lanky stretched-out version of yourself. After pulling a few faces, doing a little dance and quite possibly making a little love and/or getting down tonight; remember that gangly reflection. That’s you. And for the short amount of time before you move on to the next mirror, that ‘you’ is almost a Lori Earley rendition of yourself. Almost. What that image lacks however, among the many other aspects of an Earley painting, is the celestial quality and the almost ridiculous amount of emotion that is poured into each one of her portraits.

So why is it only now, after years of producing unique portraits, that Earley is truly being recognized, and more importantly appreciated, by the general public? Could it have something to do with the painting of Madonna on show for this year’s Grammy’s? I don’t think so. Because if one was able (and many were, trust me) to take a look at that image and instantly know it was a Lori Earley portrait, then surely she was heard of before? Too right – you were just late for that little bandwagon.

Earley began exhibiting her work in 2004 in New York where she not only grew up, but also nurtured her talents at the School of Visual Arts: New York. Just one other reason to put on that awfully camp ‘I ♥ NY’ t-shirt you “don’t recall” buying, you say? Really, is there ever a reason? (Take it off, burn it and we’ll never speak of it again). A gifted artist from a young age, Earley managed to create a concrete distinct style by the winter years of her adolescence. Storming through all sorts of mediums including canvas, paper, oil and graphite with flying colours, Earley was soon ‘acclaimed as an exceptional new talent’- getting much notice for her instantly recognisable portraits.

Her twisted take on reality drew praise and attention from various galleries and other artists, not to mention collectors. The sad truth is though, the public as a whole are rather slow to catch on to these sorts of things so going through her gallery, you’d be forgiven for thinking her work is a tad repetitive; the same lengthy-limbed anorexics with big anime-esque eyes;  yes, yes we saw it all in her other galleries in a slightly different setting. I’m not going to disagree with you there, but as we weren’t around to witness these collections develop, seeing them as a whole makes it harder for us to appreciate just how much Earley has grown as an artist.

Of her work, Earley believes her paintings are a ‘combination of classic realistic rendering with a personal element of distortion…[which] comes from [her] innate desire to transform…emotions into tangible planes’. To me, the thing about these bizarrely seductive skeletal sirens is, as with most things, the details. Do you realize none of them are smiling? Did you pick out the abundance of beautiful naked shoulders and décolletage?  I did. Oh, you did too? Well yes, well done you and I then. I mean sure, we all noticed that for an artist noted for her ‘undeniable feminine force’, these angular individuals she paints are all just that. Very angular, skinny ladies who instill that ‘why do the only designer clothes I can afford come in sample sizes?’ feeling in her more shallow, newer fans. But were you aware of the subtle lighting that really makes these paintings what you know they are, but just can’t quite put your finger on. They have that glow; those understated shafts of light that reflect off those pointed shoulders. The colours that work together to form a seamless dreamscape that we can only hope to even imagine. The often sad but strong women in her works have more emotion in their eyes than this writer could ever express, no matter how many articles she writes; run-on sentences and all. These ladies are jarring and almost wrong in such a beautiful way, that they must exist somewhere; either in different worlds or times to ours. Their overly expressive eyes are rich with detail and knowing. And it’s the urge to learn what it is they know that is valuable enough to steal you away from whatever space you observe them from, straight into their hall of mirrors.

And if having your work thought valuable enough to be stolen is a sign of just how far you’ve come, then these really are Earley’s days. Her last show ‘Fade To Gray’ was unlucky (or lucky from a publicity point of view) enough to have not one, but two paintings pilfered. While the thief was caught, the drawings are yet to be recovered. However, fans of the 2008 solo show will still be able to enjoy at least one of the drawings as a limited edition print. And to me, knowing that somewhere in our fat, dull- eyed, boring little world there’s a little bit of Ms Earley hidden away in a cheap poster tube waiting to be discovered (and by that I mean her artwork, you twisted madman)…Well that is pretty darned thrilling.

loriearley.com

Words Niki Renganathan Images Lori Earley