Mat Collishaw’s second solo exhibition at Blain/Southern in Hanover Square that opened last week has received both positive and negative feedback, but one thing is for certain, the show is certainly effective and visually gripping. Composed of fourteen new paintings by the artist the show, entitled “This Is Not An Exit”, marks Collishaw’s return to oil painting.
The works are divided into two sections like the space they are displayed in – the first set depicting what seems to be abstract three dimensional squares or folds, and the second combining the same patterns but with richer colours and eye-catching elements, such as a woman’s heel or a rose. Each canvas is in fact a blown up image of wraps of cocaine, made from various lifestyle magazines – upon closer inspection some of the depicted folds can be seen to still contain remnants of the drug.
Like most of the artist’s works they are not intended to come across as straightforward or literal, which is perhaps the mistake made by some who have responded to the works by saying that cocaine is not the problem, or that the attempt at irony has failed.
The use of detail is already rather impressive due to their large size; Collishaw then adds to this with a trompe l’oeil effect, weaving us through multiple layers of illusion – first through considering the works as three-dimensional, then as paintings of magazine images, to drug imagery. This is also mirrored in the role of the magazines themselves and their roles – first to advertise a lifestyle, then to wrap and sell cocaine, and finally to hang in a gallery as an artwork. The result is aesthetically pleasing and also a relevant critique of capitalist consumerism.
The title of the show refers to Bret Easton Ellis’s acclaimed novel “American Psycho”, and looking at the works with this in mind helps one to see them as an interesting metaphor for our society’s culture of excess during our own financial crisis, and provokes us to examine our behaviour.
A graduate of Goldsmiths College, Collishaw first entered the spotlight as a Young British Artist in the late eighties and nineties, and soon became known for creating complex works that contain opposing yet harmonious elements . By combining subject and medium, the contemporary without he traditional, or the shocking with the beautiful, different reactions of the viewer are provoked at once, drawing them in.
A good recent example of this kind of work was his series of prints entitled “Last Meal on Death Row”, which depict detailed seventeenth century-style still lives of the various meals chosen by death row prisoners on the day before they were executed. The sombre theme of ones last act before inevitable death, combined with the beautifully detailed style of the prints creates unsettling and poignant imagery as the most basic choice of foods become a kind of portrait of each prisoner.
The show is accompanied by the sale of the most in-depth publication of Collishaw’s art to date, including essays by art historians and interviews.
Words: Ksenya Blokina
