Château-la-Pompe
Press Release – Jeanine Woollard - Chateau La Pompe
Alain the cowboy is heartbreakingly sexy. Lightly tanned, glistening torso, accentuated by a discreet nipple ring; fine, strong hand deftly controlling the reins; black Stetson tipped suggestively over a bandana-ed face to add a touch of mystery… Wearing only the most cursory of Y-fronts, this man is practically obscene. Of course, like all perfect men, Alain is a fantasy…
Another, a knight, has given up on courtly love; what’s the point of an unrequited love affair when that lady with the protruding G-string over there is signalling that she’d definitely be up for it?
Through her characters and bathetic vignettes, Jeanine Woollard gently unpicks the origins of romantic myths and legends, and reveals the sorry state they’re in today. Casual sex, booze and designer outfits are the new male code of honour, and it’s taking some time to get used to… How, for example, did a sense of pride in one’s appearance and a deferential attitude to occasion evolve into this vapid metrosexuality?
Woollard’s supporting cast of romantic heroines are faring better in our post-feminist world. They get to keep their flowing Rapunzel locks and a collection of high-heels, with the added opportunity of showing off the latest saucy lingerie and possibly a bit of arse..
Vegas Gallery is proud to present ‘Chateau La Pompe’, an exhibition by the young British artist Jeanine Woollard. Although this is Woollard’s first London solo exhibition, she has already exhibited extensively in Europe, including solo shows in both Cologne and Geneva. In Britain, her promise was recognised with her inclusion in the 2008 Bloomberg New Contemporaries.
Underpinning Woollard’s nonchalant scepticism is an acute awareness of her art historical context and preceding movements in art. In her photographic version of Gerôme’s wonderfully pompous Pygmalion and Galatea, for example, it is hard to miss how she repositions art historical and political readings. Just as her technique as a sculptor and installation artist never fails to remind us of her full grasp of developments in these practices in the last thirty years.
(Included excerpts from‘Jeanine Woollard: Air on a G-String’ by Jennifer Thatcher, 2008)
Jeanine Woollard, born 1978 in Kent, lives and works in London. She graduated from Goldsmith College in 2007 and has exhibited throughout Europe, America and Asia in both Solo and Group exhibitions. Recent exhibitions include a solo show In The Chapel In The Moonlight, E-Raum Gallery, Cologne(2008); Analix Forever Galerie, Geneva (2007) and group shows Black Powder, White Party, Kyung Hee University Museum of Fine Art (Seoul, 2007), 42 x 60, www.42×60.com (Paris, 2008) and Bloomberg New Contemporaries (London, 2008).
additional text by Melanie Moreau, an independent writer and curator:
Plato’s Blanket
Chateau La Pompe, is a new body of works by the British artist Jeanine Woollard, presented as her first solo show in London. Her work is characteristically based on “low-fi” assemblages, realised with an economy of materials and space, yet creating spectacular effects, in order to turn the everyday into the extraordinary and fantastical.
Fascinated by genre and historical paintings, longing for epic and grandeur, she produces works that thrive on the essence of mythology and heroism. She uses the visual vocabulary of formal art history. Her most recent works focus on creating timeless images that have an historical character when, in fact, they use very contemporary means: the use of junk or everyday materials and a woman’s point of view. By bringing contemporary life into historical era or works, she can adjust their political position, and creates a world where she, the artist and woman, can be the hero. She becomes muse and artist, re-writing history in order for her to feel more comfortable with it. In this instance, her body functions as a symbol or allegory for constant historical reference points (the nude being one; her poses that allude to it instantly). It is her way to take back control back (to be both creator and creation).
As a post-modern artist, form and idea are equally relevant in her work. Although the works in this series are photographs, they are merely here to document her temporary installations, rather than the media in itself. She sees herself as a sculptor and is interested by the notion of 2-D and narrative within her practice. In this instance, photographs give to her work - made of raw materials- a gloss, flattening the image. They therefore allude more easily to paintings rather than sculptures, becoming physical collages. Partly through the presence of her body, almost as a ready-made in this context, they create allusion and illusion. Photographs are also a way to keep the works within the delusional and private world of her studio and play with the notion of theatricality, as inauthenticity, present within installations and performances. In this instance, the printed blankets work as backdrops, allowing her to create a stage for the narrative, where she is able to insert herself into a pre-existent fantasy, or create fantasy from a chance encounter with an object.
Because of their visual, theatrical and almost cinematic references, the works all share a strong sense of narrative. This is reinforced by their realistic qualities. They allow her to physically experience the unrestricted creations of her imagination; allow her to indulge in a waking dream and fulfil a need for a life of fantasy. Her work thrives on “the desire to create something tumultuous and impulsive from very little”, and find “narrative and mythology in everyday life”. Herein lies humanity and the importance of storytellers.
© Melanie Moreau