Still Life

STILL LIFE

It was inevitable that once the idea of using appropriation had informed his practice his attention would focus on another painting genre: Still Life especially the early work that emerged in the Netherlands and Spain in the late 16^th century.

Alan:

“Still life is always about much more than a casual arrangement of simple ordinary objects. It is full of allegories stores and meanings. I wanted firstly to celebrate the work of those artists important in the development of this particular genre. At the same time I also wanted to try and extend and add to this in a variety of ways”.

In some works he has taken a painting and reproduced it as faithfully as possible but then subverted the original with the inclusion of a contemporary element . In other works the subtext of sensuality and eroticism withheld beneath the surface is playfully brought forward and messages about the dangers of earthly pleasures ironically highlighted. In some images he has tried to tease the eye by incorporating actual 3 dimensional elements in combination with Trompe L’oeil painted illusions of 3 dimensionality. In other images he has fused different visual arts traditions from different historical periods, for example the brash iconography of Pop Art invades a 17^th century Still Life.

Alan:

“Work I have selected to appropriate is not from the original but a reproduction from a book or downloaded from the internet which is different. The scale is not evident, frequently detail might be lost and colours distorted but this creates for me even more potential for re-interpretation and playing with the idea of what is ‘new’. Post Modernist ideas with regard to originality, cultural hierarchies, and the role of irony conceptually underpins the work”.