Barry Reigate
dal 12/3/2008 al 19/4/2008
Segnalato da
12/3/2008
Barry Reigate
Paradise Row (old location), London
Comprising of paintings, sculptures and drawings, the exhibition presents a riotous, chaotic, carnivalesque universe in which depraved cartoonish creatures, hyper-violent and clearly on heat, cavort, playing malevolently with their pudenda as well as with signs, forms and references.
Paradise Row is proud to present Barry Reigate’s first major London
solo show. Comprising of paintings, sculptures and drawings, the
exhibition presents a riotous, chaotic, carnivalesque universe in
which depraved cartoonish creatures, hyper-violent and clearly on
heat, cavort, playing malevolently with their pudenda as well as with
signs, forms and references.
In the paintings inhabitants from the studios of Disney and Warner
Brothers collide in a painterly netherworld that recalls the jackdaw
style of Basquiat. We are treated to visions such as that of the head
of a decapitated Bambi skewered on the ever-elongating nose of
Pinocchio in ‘Telling Lies’, and of the grinning beauty of Penelope
Pew in ‘Daddies New Girlfriend Stinks’.
Meanwhile in the sculptural arena, Reigate presents two, large,
human-sized zombie-rabbit-like forms, that, possibly, mock Jeff Koon’s
insidiously pristine, stainless steel “Rabbit”. Made of Jesmonite and
coated with thick, disfiguring black gloss, the figures are
distinguished by being pierced by neon tubes. ‘I’m not a Follower, I’m
a Leader’, lying on its back, appears to sport the neon tube as penis,
another, ‘Triumph in the Face of Adversity’, has a neon emerging from
its anus whilst a third figure, ‘Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of
Victory’, deviates from the rabbit theme, being a mouse, stands
proudly, like a kind of neo-Cyclops, pierced right through its sweet
head with the beam of light. Transfixed with agony or joy? Here the
distinction between pain and pleasure is left deliciously ambiguous,
titillating for all those who hover nervously on the border between
sadism and masochism… As it says, somewhere or other in the Bible “And
lo the light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend
it”… Those unconcerned with such esoteric nuances will be pleased to
note that the sculptures also function simply as lovely lamps… as long
as you… turn them on.
In a highly moving subtext, intelligible only with knowledge of the
highly private, autobiographical facts that I am about to tell you,
the works mainline straight into the personal history of the artist.
As a child Reigate was largely taught to draw by his identically named
father, Barry James Reigate, imprisoned, at the time, in Wandsworth
Prison, who used to send Barry Jr. postcards dotted with the figures
of Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse and so on. From an early age, then,
Reigate (Jr.), associated art and creativity with escape, an
association Reigate has sought to deepen in his adult years.
Accordingly all these works vividly demonstrate Reigate's commitment
to stupidity and fun as the primary impulse and final purpose of art
making but also attempt to serve as puerile metaphors for the dynamics
of power within human societies.
Private View: Thursday, 13 March 2008, 7 - 9 pm
Paradise Row
17 Hereford St - London