To coincide with the current exhibition Interspecies, Cornerhouse Projects features Andrew George Magee’s, Idol Chamber. This series of paintings and drawings are populated with masked figures at various stages of metamorphosis, and personify humanity’s fall into decadence and idolatry.
Want to hear from the artist himself? Then click on the link to the left on this page and read Magee’s statement on his Idol Chamber works.
‘How many people have wished that they could peel off their human skin, their self-awareness, and find only fur and instinct and a fresh start underneath?’
A L Kennedy from her essay ‘In Search of Contentment’.
In his recent body of work, Magee’s paintings are populated with goat-headed girls clothed in couture dresses. These women are not for pitying. The paintings suggest a world where mutation has been heightened to a pinnacle of reverie.
Religiosity and images of feminine power are ever present throughout Magee’s work. Whereas the geisha represented the rise to a state of realised grace, the goat-girl personifies the fall into decadence and pleasure; into a hedonistic playground, a masked ball of mysticism and idolatry. Magee employs the repeated motif of the Datura flower, [a tropane plant traditionally used in hermetic rituals] which is associated with divination and feminine power in a number of cultures and with deities such as the goddess Kali in Hinduism. Feeding from a variety of source material, from fashion editorials to early alchemical engravings, the artist works in a universe where Cabbala meets Cavalli and the contemporary and the archaic are equally present.
All works are for sale: Price lists are available at Box Office and the Galleries Foyer Desk (second floor).
Courtesy of Comme Ca Art.