Stolen Language
dal 25/3/2002 al 26/4/2002
Segnalato da
25/3/2002
Stolen Language
A&D Gallery, London
A selection of new paintings by the young British artist Nancyboy. His bright and bold canvases display an array of symbols, slogans and cartoon characters appropriated from his generation's culture.
The Art of Nancyboy
The A&D gallery will show a selection of new paintings by the young British artist
Nancyboy.
His bright and bold canvases display an array of symbols, slogans and
cartoon characters appropriated from his generation's culture. His depictions are
humorous and enigmatic, quirky yet emotive, with a sense of a creator laying down a
blueprint of the very 'now-ness' of everyday life. Generation Y have grown up and
their voices are being heard, as fast as their high speed dial ups can carry them.
With high-energy 80s music still ringing in his ears, Nancyboy is creating paintings
that are more like pop songs.
More than just cartoon-influenced fun time art, his inspiration and language are
unquestionably donated and referenced from popular culture, but this seems to be of
a more philosophical nature than that of the ready made. As a myth- maker, he
mythologizes popular culture by filling form with meaning, emptying it out again of all
our notions of it, and refilling it with potent reflective punch. This is Nancy's
distortion of pop and an important part of it's continuing history.
He is organized, and he is calculated. The words and the images are a language in
themselves. They work together. They are pointed in a very particular direction- for
a very particular outcome. His art has a destination, and this sets it apart from other
works of pop. Pop always liked to comment and to play on current culture, but it
rarely had velocity. The painting of Nancyboy has velocity. It has a place to go. He
tells visual stories set out to challenge the language of current culture- its inherent
contradictions and symbolic carelessness.
Roland Barthes writes, "Our culture (world) conceals and or naturalizes the
meanings of its own dominant culture." Nancyboy takes it upon himself to do just
that. He uses his own "image-reservoir" to create a system of thought that
describes and salutes the signifiers and signs of our dominant culture, of our popular
culture.
Nancyboy is concerned with the "mythical." Not in the supernatural or astrological
sense of the word but in the articulate and structuralist sense of the word. He is
concerned with concepts, events, and meanings that become so ubiquitous and full
in popular culture that they turn back on themselves and become the nature of our
lives. This nature is simultaneously the meaning of our lives as well. His work is a
language- a system of signs, orbiting in a sphere of signification that expresses the
poetics of the object- of the art object.
Nancyboy was born in 1980 in Bournemouth, where he has spent most of his life. He
got a Distinction in Art and Design from Poole before studying Painting and
Printmaking at Bretton Hall in Leeds. Between 1999 and 2001 Nancyboy has featured
in a number of solo and group shows all over the UK. As well as adding colour and joy
to homes and offices all over the world, Nancy's work can be found in the foyers of
banks, fashion houses and film companies.
-With Thanks to Jeremy Steinke
Private View: 26th March 6-9pm
Opening Times: Monday to Sat 10:30 am - 7pm
A&D Gallery
51 Chiltern Street, London, W1U 6LY