The King of Hearts Has No Moustache

About

Gallery Vela is delighted to present a solo exhibition of new works by London-based artist, Kate Hawkins. This will be the most comprehensive exhibition of new work to date. Moustaches are performative. As well as being plays on sincerity they are just plays. A moustache, unlike a beard, performs its presence — it can only come into being by consciously cutting away everything around it. And through acting itself out, it tends to reveal more than it hides. Sometimes a moustache is so parodic and consciously curated, a spectator can forget he or she is witnessing a staged fiction at all. The moment of disorientation between fake and sincere is where the parody becomes the reality. And the ridiculed, the strong. The moustache becomes honest, not a cover-up: it becomes accountable for itself. Accountability, like moustache maintenance, is a fragile thing. There is a fine balance between too much and too little — physically a moustache needs distinctive parameters to be a moustache at all. It is a balance of nerve and skill. Like painting.