___________________________________________________________
Doris A. Day, Oscar, 2013, oil on canvas, 175 x 135 cm
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Doris A. Day, Pope I, 2013, oil on canvas, 45 x 55 cm
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Doris A. Day, Self-Portrait, 2013, o il on canvas, 175 x 135 cm
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Doris A. Day, Dead Cat Bounce, Installation View 2013
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Anna Genger, Rose, 2013, oil, and acrylic on canvas, 130 x 110 cm
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Anna Genger, Rose, 2013, detail, oil, and acrylic on canvas, 130 x 110 cm
___________________________________________________________ 
___________________________________________________________
Anna Genger, Waris , 2013, detail, oil, and acrylic on canvas, 130 x 110 cm
___________________________________________________________
|
_____________________________
Dead Cat Bounce' Doris A. Day, Gallery 1
'Waris and Rose', Anna Genger, Gallery 2
_____________________________
The Agency is pleased to present two concurrent painting exhibitions 'Dead Cat Bounce', the third solo presentation of works by the British painter Doris A. Day in Gallery 1 and an exhibition of new works ' Waris and Rose' by the German painter Anna Genger in Gallery 2, who last showed at the gallery in 2008.
'Dead Cat Bounce' is a series of works which play with the genre of painting. It consists of portraits of significant political and cultural figures which are figurative but by applying psychological and conceptual methods to the painting process their meaning shifts. The term ' dead cat bounce' is taken from economical speak and points metaphorically to a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock. The series includes the haunting portait of actress Doris Day in a white rabbit outfit, faintly obscured by pastel smears. It is a very ghostly portrayal of an icon, which also doubles as a knowing self-portrait. Day uses the double entendre very effectively and in an understated manner. 'Oscar' is a large scale portrait of Oscar Pistorius, a direct comment on the current trial which is disected in the media. Whilst the psychological framework is derived from the case as it is publicly represented, the portrait could be of any man , hunched forward and with coloured smears absuring his face violently and yet also in the most colourful and painterly manner. Day's lightness of touch and confident painting technique enables him to touch subject matters such as the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1982, depicted falling as hit by the bullet with Days' tradmark coloured smears tracing his fall as well as connecting him to the person holding on to him. The work is negotiating the post-modern canon of painting whilst acknowledging its redundancy almost as a slight of hand. Doris A. Day displays an informed sensitivity to the political subject matter he touches upon. His new works include a portrait of Alexander Rodchenko with red blue and yellow geometric doodles. Rodchenko declared "I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue, and yellow. I affirmed: it's all over." In Doris A. Day's series the cynical 'dead cat bounce' reveals momentary signs of life in the genre. Doris A. Day (* 1982) lives and works in London. He has shown in various galleries in the UK and his work is in a number of private collections.
________________________________________
German artist Anna Genger's technique mixes painterly methods and a contemporary approach to drawing which balances between obsessive mark making, biro doodles and graffiti. In her most recent pieces for the Agency the subject matter of her paintings is psycho-sexual. The works' content and technique hints at a contemporary approach to surrealist feminity, as it was explored by Dr Patricia Allmer in her 2009 exhibtion 'Angels of Anarchy'. Genger is not a surrealist painter per se, however her work's approach could be understood as rooted in some of the themes and motifs explored by female surrealist precursors and the psychological and social concerns which Allmer explored in her book and exhibition. 'Waris and Rose' is a diptych of paintings which chart the internal landscape of women based on their relationship to their sexual body and the violent or chosen interference with it. The two women featured in two different television documentaries. Rose is a young girl who has suffered from a congenital disfigurement of her labia so she decides to have it surgically corrected.
Waris is an Ethiopian Ex-Model who has played a major role in drawing the public eye onto the topic of genital mutilation. Genger translates the sketchy biographical information of both video portraits as two opposing internal landscapes, one of dark tonality and rupture and one of a more light palette, Rose, a microsopic panorama of a correction which will lead to an improved life. The choices she makes are completely subjective, however, as part of a larger exploration of women's sexual selves the approach retains an objective validity and adds a valuable voice to the debate around a fairly recent taboo. Anna Genger is currently working on a large series of such portraits of the unseen feminine sexuality with both a sense of artistic abandon and an acute understanding of the conflicts of contemporary feminism. The complete series will be exhibited at Galerie Bastian in Berlin (www.heinerbastian.com), in the autumn.
|
