The paradoxical nature of aspiring to the impossible is the focus of Andrew Barns-Graham’s latest body of work. His oeuvre reflects the ideals and desires promoted by Western society’s obsession with the cult of celebrity - beauty, glamour, perfect bodies and the latest fashion.
Barns-Graham’s highly refined acrylic dry-point technique resembles that of the photo re-touch technician, allowing him to create flawless faces with a burnished glow. The pared-back detail in his compositions focuses attention on the glamorous actors who populate his canvases. Except for theatrical props such as gloves, cigarettes and scarves, the faces are anonymous with no markers to identify them or indicate a life behind their glossy facade.
Barns-Graham gleans his current imagery from photographs, magazines and movie stills, choosing classic pictures of glamour from the 1950s. These images seem familiar but it is clear that this is no one you know. The only role the subjects have is to act as a conduit for the illusion of glamour; they project a life that is clean, perfect and enviable.
The artist chooses images that seem charged with some kind of emotion, yet contain no narrative – as with photographs, they capture only single moments. The lack of context, combined with Barns-Graham’s refinement and transformation of his original sources, ensures that the images remain superficial. He distils their essence until they become mere replications of emotion. Everyone is obviously ‘faking it’.
Somehow this absence of real feeling allows us to enter the realm of the model/actor. They walk in a world of luxury yachts, snappy conversation and pristine white rooms. Their lives are uncluttered and unreal. And that is the essence of their glamour.
The artist’s source images of the many female icons of Hollywood glamour from the 1950s could appear old and outmoded. However, what they represent is still instantly recognisable, calling attention to the morphing through time of idealised aspirations. A common thread runs through the visual language of consumerist society from its origins through to the present day, in the desire for perfection and the glamorous life.
Through the fashion, entertainment and cosmetics industries, the general population has been consistently encouraged to aspire to the impossible. We are constantly bombarded with images that raise the benchmark in terms of the levels of perfection we are ‘supposed’ to attain. Satisfaction with one’s self is discouraged and ideals of glamour are promoted over and over again in their re-touched, made-up and colour-corrected glory. Barns-Graham’s works do not ignore the compelling nature of these ideals and their fascination, but clearly delineate their unreality – his images are fantastic and farcical in the same gleaming moment.
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