The fact that the subject is a child makes the triangular relationship artist/model/viewer even more problematic in today's social context. Far from avoiding the polemic, the artist stretches the issue as far as mimicking pixels on the model's face in some of the drawings as one might see in tabloids. Pradier confronts the viewer with their own phobia and censorship.
Case-1 gallery is pleased to present Karine Pradier. Pradier is a French artist living and working in London, exhibiting both in London and abroad.
"A picture becomes itself in the moment of being seen" admits Siri Hustvelt's heroes, William Wechsler, an imaginary artist. In his pictures, the same woman grows and shrinks and at each extreme defies recognition. The same could be said of Karine Pradier's drawings, done using the same model, her daughter.
While portraits usually exist independently from their viewers, Pradier's girl(s) are read differently by the female, the male, the child, the mother's... mind.
The fact that the subject is a child makes the triangular relationship artist/model/viewer even more problematic in today's social context. Far from avoiding the polemic, the artist stretches the issue as far as mimicking pixels on the model's face in some of the drawings as one might see in tabloids. Pradier confronts the viewer with their own phobia and censorship.
The representation alternates between submission and aggression, tenderness and brutality, though it always caries the strength and honesty of the tie that links Pradier with her model. The formulas of explanation fall short of reality.
Along with drawing, Pradier is showing a series of sculptures. Clothed hollow forms echo a ghostly presence – and absence – of childlike figures. Perhaps a reminder of an old trick, a cushion under the bedclothes to fool us into believing.
Private View: 21 May 2004, 18.30-21.00
Exhibition date: 21 May - 1 June 2004
Gallery Hours: 10.30-18.30
Mob: 0794 141 8382
Forthcoming Exhibitions:
Johanna Love
Exhibition date: 4-14 June 2004
Private view: 4 June 2004, 18.45-21.00
case-1 gallery
20 Store Street, London WC1E 7PJ
Tel: 020 7436 8506
F: 020 7436 4587