At first glance, there might not seem much in common between the works of artists Liz Arnold and Mircea Cantor, who’s exhibitions are running concurrently in the galleries of The Camden Art Centre. Scratch the surface and you begin to find strikingly similar themes and metaphors.
Both artists use objects and subject matters which at first seem unthreatening – Cantor’s installations feature peacocks and what appears to be a giant rug, while Arnolds paintings are in vivid day glow colours and depict dogs, cats and insects. Dig a little deeper and you uncover elements and ideas, which are far more unsettling than you could have initially imagined.
The 31 year old Eastern European’s work has an underlying theme – Cantor has said that he wishes to “set up physically and psychologically unsettling situations for the viewer.” Personally, I felt quite uncomfortable as I stood in front of the installation “The Need For Uncertainty” which features two very much alive peacocks within a labyrinth of gigantic golden cages – their habitat for the duration of this exhibition. Here, Cantor is challenging our perceptions of what constitutes “art” and what as an audience we would consider acceptable to see in a gallery.
Elsewhere, “Airplanes and Angels” is another example of Cantor’s wish to explore the theme of worlds within worlds. A large woven piece of fabric hangs suspended from the ceiling, as if in mid flight. While the design in the centre of the rug is of a traditional Romanian motif, the rest of the fabric is made up of images of planes and angels. As the designs on rugs traditionally reflect the concepts of the time, it would not be too far fetched to suggest that this generation of children weaving patterns into carpets are influenced and affected by the fighter planes flying over their heads in war torn Romania.
In the space next door to Cantor’s is the exhibition of Liz Arnold, who died aged 36 in 2001. This exhibition was curated by Arnold’s friends and fellow artists, and I got the sense that a great deal of care was put into the display of her work, who in life was one of the key artists to emerge from the 1990’s London art scene. Fellow artist Gavin Turk recently said, “I think it’s fantastic that the Camden Arts Centre exhibition is giving an original and much loved painter the exposure she deserves”.
One critic described her work as “providing an irresistibly silly antidote to the seriousness of much modern art”, but to look only superficially would miss the point somewhat. While her work obviously reflects her inspirations of cartoons, video games and fashion magazines, there is an underlying darkness to much of the fantastical and almost cutesy imagery of the ‘little worlds’ in which to escape to.
One of her most well known paintings is “Quality Time On Your Own”, which depicts a reclining ladybird smoking a cigarette and lazily blowing smoke rings into the sky, while another work shows a woman with a dogs face and tail (or is it a dog with a woman’s body?) as she strolls along the beach. For those who are more familiar with the Disney-esque anthropomorphism of animals, seeing them portrayed in a very different light – and sharing the more realistic traits of humans (smoking, dressing inappropriately etc), makes it even more unsettling..
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