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23/4/2004

Vicky Wright

IBID Projects, Vilnius

'Pineal Pastures'
New paintings

All things are always changing,
But nothing dies. The spirit comes and goes,
Is housed wherever it wills, shifts residence
From beasts to men, from men to beasts, but always
It keeps on living.

(Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XV, lines 165–7)

Vicky Wright's paintings are joyful, dynamic, subversive explorations of the subjective fantasy and postfeminist imagination as well as art historical themes. They capture moments of metamorphosis and pagan ritual, celebrate powers of the mythic and the primeval, and evoke the labyrinths of the unconscious and the occult. Wright depicts animals in the process of becoming human, and humans in the magic rites of returning to the realm of beasts and spirits. Wright's paintings can be situated in the tradition of outsider art and folklore, yet they are inspired and informed by such diverse cultural sources as works of Hieronymus Bosch, Paul Gauguin, Friedrich Nietzsche and August Strindberg.

Poor Angus the Rotten Sun portrays Wright's boyfriend as a puppy, or an endearing calf. The fantastic creature is set against the Gainsboroughesque sky and gazes at the viewer with cheerful familiarity. The mischievous painting radiates the mood of sentimentality and humour. It also hints at the pleasures of witchcraft – the artist casts a spell through the act of representation and reminds us of the fate of Actaeon, whom Diana changed into a stag after he chanced upon the goddess and her nymphs bathing. Mister Curls is a portrait that evokes the work of Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614), who painted the family of Tongnina Gonzalez, a noblewoman, who suffered from the rare condition hypertricosis (an illness causing excessive hair growth around the face and parts of the body).

Castaway is based on Gericaut's Raft of the Medusa. A large dog-faced creature hugs a distraught native that has been rescued from an ominous post-apocalyptic landscape. Embraced like a lover, or captured like some rare specimen, the dark skinned girl belongs in the scenario of the erotic colonial dream or science fiction. Mouth open and eyes fixed, she appears like a blow-up doll or ventriloquist's dummy in the hands of a thing that resembles a large puppet itself.

The saturated colours of Castaway leak into the pastoral setting of Pixie, which could be seen as an interpretation of the biblical theme of Susanna and the Elders. In Wright's version, protagonists are inverted into a fairytale characters - the virtuous Susanna is replaced by a pixie, while her seducers are transformed into the voyeuristic wildlife.

Vicky Wright lives and works in London. She has studied in Royal College of Art, London. This is her first international solo show.

For more information or images please contact the gallery on +37 (0) 6819 1005 / +44 (0)208 983 4355

IBID Projects
Sv. Stepono Street 9/4
Vilnius LT-2001, Lithuania
+37 8681 91005
+44 208 9834355

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