Alain the cowboy is heartbreakingly sexy. Lightly tanned, glistening torso, accentuated by a discreet nipple ring; fine, strong hand deftly controlling the reins; black Stetson tipped suggestively over a bandana-ed face to add a touch of mystery… Wearing only the most cursory of Y-fronts, this man is practically obscene. Of course, like all perfect men, Alain is a fantasy…
Another, a knight, has given up on courtly love; what’s the point of an unrequited love affair when that lady with the protruding G-string over there is signalling that she’d definitely be up for it?
Through her characters and bathetic vignettes, Jeanine Woollard gently unpicks the origins of romantic myths and legends, and reveals the sorry state they’re in today. Casual sex, booze and designer outfits are the new male code of honour, and it’s taking some time to get used to… How, for example, did a sense of pride in one’s appearance and a deferential attitude to occasion evolve into this vapid metrosexuality?
Woollard’s supporting cast of romantic heroines are faring better in our post-feminist world. They get to keep their flowing Rapunzel locks and a collection of high-heels, with the added opportunity of showing off the latest saucy lingerie and possibly a bit of arse..
Vegas Gallery is proud to present ‘Chateau La Pompe’, an exhibition by the young British artist Jeanine Woollard. Although this is Woollard’s first London solo exhibition, she has already exhibited extensively in Europe, including solo shows in both Cologne and Geneva. In Britain, her promise was recognised with her inclusion in the 2008 Bloomberg New Contemporaries.
Underpinning Woollard’s nonchalant scepticism is an acute awareness of her art historical context and preceding movements in art. In her photographic version of Gerôme’s wonderfully pompous Pygmalion and Galatea, for example, it is hard to miss how she repositions art historical and political readings. Just as her technique as a sculptor and installation artist never fails to remind us of her full grasp of developments in these practices in the last thirty years.
(Included excerpts from‘Jeanine Woollard: Air on a G-String’ by Jennifer Thatcher, 2008)
Jeanine Woollard, born 1978 in Kent, lives and works in London. She graduated from Goldsmith College in 2007 and has exhibited throughout Europe, America and Asia in both Solo and Group exhibitions. Recent exhibitions include a solo show In The Chapel In The Moonlight, E-Raum Gallery, Cologne(2008); and group shows Black Powder, White Party, Kyung Hee University Museum of Fine Art (Seoul, 2007), 42 x 60, www.42×60.com (Paris, 2008) and Bloomberg New Contemporaries (London, 2008).
