Danica Lundy / Whitecube
Danica Lundy
Danica Lundy’s “Stop Bath” , on show at the Whitecube in Bermondsey, London until 11th September 2022 is a collection of works that explore the planar surrealism of multiple perspectives.
These works possess a quality of unbalancing oddity that requires time to settle in front of us before fully understanding what is being shown.
At first, the scene feels like a jumble of mechanical organic confusion, cold metals, gears and wires merging with fleshy limbs.
At first, the scene feels like a jumble of mechanical organic confusion, cold metals, gears and wires merging with fleshy limbs.
“Chamber”, 2022, Oil on Canvas, continues her use of simultaneous representation leaving the viewer confused as to their own angle into a work that slowly reveals itself as a reward to the persistent eye.
This large wall-sized canvas is awash with details and texture in a frantic style that is both detailed and sometimes absent of form and a little rushed. At first, the scene feels like a jumble of mechanical organic confusion, cold metals, gears and wires merging with fleshy limbs. Conversely, we see soft fabrics become metallic and armour-like in their execution.
We can then start to see the form of a camera move forward through the noise towards us and the perspective shift. As a viewer we are inside the body of the device peering outwards.
The camera belongs to Lundy’s father, a photojournalist, who lies on his deathbed surrounded by family. His pallid yellow skin, matching the brassy tones of the gears and mechanical parts, no longer filled with the pinky tones of a body with undeniable vitality. In the lamp at the top we can see Lundy’s own reflection, and so the perspective shifts again, we are her.
Later we find out that this was a scene she had experienced as a FaceTime call on an iPad . Replacing the soulless hi-tech for the camera that her father adored is a tribute or perhaps a longing to be present in a way that makes Lundy feel connected to her father, through his life’s work. The shutter button of the camera is shown as a piercing light that drives through the father’s eye as he looks up – freezing the moment as if the roll of Kodachrome film on the left could somehow prevent the sad departure, as though her father and the camera could become one at the will of her index finger.
Throughout the painting the letters DNR are hidden, showing the terminal resignation of her father’s situation and the once confusing and energetic image has now left us, the viewer, sombre and emotionally invested in the traumatic passing of a loved one we never knew.
Louise Giovanelli / Whitecube
Louise Giovanelli
Giovanellis “As If Almost” , on show at the Whitecube in Bermondsey, London until 11th September 2022 is a small collection of works that explore the material substances contained within each frame.
Within the billowing space of the Whitecube gallery, these works at first ‘squint’ appear to be photorealistic, with bokeh-like blur and light refractions and, from a distance, at an opposite side of a concrete runway one could believe they were indeed digital photographs.
These works glow, with a chemical and yellow/green haze that feels like an absinthe cocktail fog.
These works glow, with a chemical and yellow/green haze that feels like an absinthe cocktail fog.
The subject matter is connected to the modern allure of celebrated media, of film and television, the glitzy sparkle and the textural extravagance of sequins and velvet curtains. Hair also features in some extreme cropped works that remove the hair from the person and treat it like an object in its own right.
This uncanny extraction of textural surfaces is somewhat uneasy and gives rise to a sense of voyeurism, a peep into a world where we are not the main event but neither is the subject, headless and unidentifiable and simply a collection of studies of texture.
It’s easy to forget these are paintings, with a surface that is blurred and smooth not giving away too much information regarding the gestures and movement of the artist. These works glow, with a chemical and yellow/green haze that feels like an absinthe cocktail fog.