‘What Will Become Of Us?’ @ TGP Notting Hill
Taymour Grahne has recently launched a second gallery space in Notting Hill with the inaugural solo-show ‘What Will Become of Us’, featuring Evie O’Connor. O’Connor’s work is a sharp critique of our current climate, igniting an uncomfortable, necessary conversation surrounding class and wealth. O’Connor’s work dissects the often-empty aspirations of the scenes she portrays. Each painting, a small vignette of beautiful, untarnished privilege, is equally idyllic, idealised and repulsive. Made In Bed’s Reviews Editor Olivia Wilson comments on this world of alluring fancy and its more sinister aftertaste left lingering in the mouth.
‘What Will Become of Us’ presents a brightly coloured body of work that captures the riches and glamorous habitudes of art fair attendees and biennale pundits. Exposing the ever-steeper excesses of the art world and its upper-echelons – a hard to reach place for most – we are presented with picture perfect lavish dinners hosted in an artist’s honour, sports cars parked outside designer shops in the Riviera and members-only pools atop skyscrapers in Miami. Yet, underneath the surface of these images, which we all desire to step into, O’Connor is conscious of the widening levels of income disparity and the thoughtless excess of it all. Upon second reflection, the glamour of O’Connor’s paintings pales, turning more ominous.
Exhibition display. Source: the artist.
The highly glossed sheen of O’Connor’s works emphasises their equally glossy subject matter, reminding us that we cannot touch the world enclosed within. O’Connor takes inspiration from images found on social media, Getty images and other online sources to construct new scenes of escapism. This erects yet another wall obstructing our entry into such worlds: the closest most of us will ever come to obtaining such a lavish lifestyle is by observing it through a phone screen. O’Connor typically works on small canvases (20 x 15cm), cropping the scene to fit. The size of her paintings runs counter to our expectations of images of extreme wealth and opulence: one would imagine the canvas to be over-powering and large. O’Connor delights in this irony, adding yet another layer to her witty commentary on such lavish lives.
A personal favourite from the exhibition, ‘Property Portfolios’ (2020), consists of snapshots of billionaires houses painted on the four sides of a vase. Glimpses of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Rupert Murdoch’s 8 figure estates decorate the vase’s surface. Seemingly charming and harmless, the properties represent greed and gross-inequality.
Property Portfolios, 2020. Source: the artist.
‘Damien Hirst with Lemon Tree, Venice’ (2021) presents the artist-come-celebrity tentatively sniffing a lemon, no doubt at an exclusive A-list gathering hosted as part of the Venice Biennale. With a net worth in excess of $345 million (Observer, Nov 2020), Damien Hirst has achieved Hollywood-like celebritydom, now being termed a “mega-artist” in a vain attempt to encapsulate his gargantuan wealth and influence. Indeed, Hirst is in the exclusive minority of artists that reap such financial ‘success’, fortunate enough to not have to try to sustain a side hustle in order to fund his career as an artist – the crippling reality for many.
Damien Hirst with Lemon Tree, Venice, 2021. Source: taymourgrahne.com.
In ‘Imagine (Gal Gadot)’ (2020) O’Connor questions whether those so cocooned by their own wealth and privilege have become detached from reality. Grasping at straws to remain relatable, celebs and billionaires are in fact impermeable to reality. Of course, O’Connor is referencing the impressively tone-deaf video released by the actress Gal Gadot, in which celebs sung along to Elton John’s ‘Imagine’ during the first lockdown last Spring. The insincerity of a celebrity singing “imagine there’s no possessions” from the safety of their mansion did not go down well, unsurprisingly. Onlookers were united in their bafflement at the depths of disconnection glaring back at them, whilst celebrities retreated to their plush holiday homes to wait out the storm.
40 Euro Negroni, 2020. Source: the artist.
Ultimately, in ‘What Will Become of Us’ O’Connor urges you to question whether you envy this life or not? Do you scorn it, yet secretly wish to be invited in? Do you wish to buy a 40 euro Negroni without giving it a second thought? Are you longing to dive into the luxurious, palm-fringed ‘Faena Pool’ (2021) in Miami, a hotel boasting poolside butlers on standby to give you a fresh-water footbath after strolling along the beach? O’Connor cleverly shows how “performative affluence and sun-kissed elitism become galleries in themselves” and exposes the status anxieties of many art world players. As Tom Wolfe said, the art world is a “statusphere”, structured around nebulous hierarchies of fame, credibility, wealth, education and materialistic attributes such as the size of one’s art collection.
Faena Pool, 2021. Source: the artist.
O’Connor’s work is provocative and daring, especially in an epoch during which the divides between rich and poor are more glaringly obvious than ever. Beneath her veneer of beauty and perfection, darker themes emerge, pushing us to question what we value in life and why.
‘What Will Become of Us?’’ is on view at Taymour Grahne until 18th June 2021.
Reviews Editor, MADE IN BED