Georgia Dymock: Monsters, Chambers, and Trapdoors
21th November, 2024 – 11th January, 2024
Gillian Jason Gallery
19 Great Titchfield Street
London
W1W 8AZ
In her upcoming solo exhibition, ‘Monsters, Chambers, and Trapdoors‘, Georgia Dymock invites viewers into mystical realms populated by voluminous, anthropomorphic figures that traverse the boundaries of gender, sexuality, play, fantasy, and the subconscious. Dymock’s work deftly combines digital and analogue media, crafting intricate scenes that transition from screen to canvas, where imagery rendered in digital programs finds new life in oil paint.
Dymock’s latest series foregrounds the concept of identity, layering her figures with subtle mythological and fantastical qualities. Through these figures, she challenges traditional narratives, questioning societal conventions and subverting the concept of ‘monstrosity.’ The work invites viewers to reconsider the boundaries between heroism and monstrosity, encouraging reflection on the forces that shape perceptions of self and other. Dymock’s recognition in the art world includes winning the 2023 Cass Art Prize, being selected as one of the 2024 New Contemporaries, and being named a finalist for the 2024 Ingram Prize.
A recurring motif in Dymock’s latest body of work is the depiction of paired figures, often connected yet displaying a surface-level intimacy. Drawing from Plato’s writings on Soulmates, which tell of humans originally created with four arms, four legs, and two heads, Dymock reflects on the profound sense of incompleteness and longing for connection that followed their separation by Zeus. Her figures, while physically close, evoke a sense of coldness and detachment, exploring the objecthood of human forms. Alienation of the body is further emphasised by Dymock’s use of shiny, metallic-looking surfaces, which draw attention to the cold, non-human nature of the figures.
This detachment raises questions about whether Dymock is painting still life rather than figuration, her abstractions reducing human forms to their simplistic elements. The paintings in fact continue an early 20th Century (Surrealism/Dada) preoccupation with the (non)human character of the mannequin, the automaton, the wax figure. These personifications are full of slippery associations that portray the body like a rearranged sentence. Unspecified people, but specific objects. These symbolic objects of difficult intricacies preoccupy the artist’s interest in ideas of fragmentation, disintegration, dissolution, and the shattering of the subject.
Georgia Dymock: Monsters, Chambers, and Trapdoors opens on the 21th of November, 2024 until the 11th of January, 2024 at Gillian Jason Gallery
©2024 Gillian Jason Gallery
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