My Bunny is Full of Teeth and Other Stories

About

On the 4th October, the Roa gallery will preview Celina Teague's solo exhibition, My Bunny is Full of Teeth and Other Stories. Teague's paintings are a hallucinatory journey into a strange existence that imagines the under-side, the other-side, the unknown and foreign side of what the artist perceives to be there. In Teague's paintings gorillas are revered romantics, people eat themselves thin and women give birth to fully-fledged porn stars. Like Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis, the heroes find themselves morphing into something alien. The body - decomposed, violated, chopped up or pumped up - is the hero of the story, the glorious protagonist captured in a moment-in-time amid the multi-layered narratives of our collective lives. Heavily influenced by her background in theatre and literature and by contemporary socio-environmental events, Teague's paintings are absurdist and dramatic. Her references are wide reaching, drawing from biblical legends and religious paintings, the fantasy world of Hieronymus Bosch, the demonological paintings of Pieter Breughel and the grotesque cartoonish visions of George Condo, Philip Guston and Jakub Julian Ziolkowski. Exploring the complexities of human existence and our bizarre relationship with the world in which we live, Teague's paintings resonate with an unsettling atmosphere that speaks profoundly of the darker side of human nature. Teague was born in London in 1981 and did her Masters in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Previously she studied Drama and English at Trinity College, Dublin and fine art at the Universidad de Bellas Artes in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has lived in Berlin and Shanghai - two cities that continue to inspire and influence her practice. This is her second solo show in London. www.celinateague.com