2014

Art Life , Exhibitions Jul 12, 2014 No Comments

From Andrew Frost

Surrealism just aint what it used to be. Once the stuff of revolution and radical art in the service of an even more radical politics, Surrealism went the way of most early 20th century avant-gardes – it became popular. And with that acceptance the language of the surreal became familiar and commonplace and while it’s a banal truism to say the surreal became the stuff of advertising and cinema, album covers and greeting cards, it also happen s to be true. Worst of all, however, was that its debased language was taken up by would-be art revolutionaries trying to put some heat back into an art movement that had been dead in 1939, let alone in the 21st century.

2014

But despite all that, a very select few artists understand the psychological power of the surrealist methodology and breathe life into into its uncanny magic. One such artist is Pat Brassington whose photo montages have the ability to provoke the double-take of immediate association, one all the more powerful, not for the disjunction between images, but because of the very effective relationship between the images. For her latest show – simply entitled 2014 – Brassington mixes body parts and flowers. The result needs no explanation, rather the effect speaks for itself. A love letter straight from from her heart.

July 16 to August 16
Stills Gallery, Paddington
Pic: Pat Brassington, Rosa, 2014. Pigment print, 80 x 62cm.

Andrew Frost

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