Arnie!

A few weeks ago I answered a painting call for submissions, with the image below:

Arnie, 2012

(Apologies for poor quality, I really need to invest in a proper camera!)

It was an interesting experience as I crated the piece for the exhibition, continuing my fixation on bodybuilding and hyper-masculinity. Considering that I had done the exhibition at the Phoenix Gallery a couple of weeks prior to this, it was a bizarre opposite in terms of curatorial input and say. At Phoenix I had been involved from start to finish in everything from curatorial decisions to locking up the gallery. In this instance, at Grey Area, I had absolutely no idea what to expect or what the set up would be.

The freeing feeling of letting your work go out into the world was coupled with a slight fear, mainly in terms of how work could be read when put into a certain context, and weather or not that would represent the work and the artists ideas correctly. But ultimately it was exciting to see the way in which the work had been curated and the way in which the works interacted with each other and the connections that appeared from this situation.

For example in the image below you can see how my work interacts with those around it and conjures up ideas of strength, masculinity and perhaps even political themes.