Ally McIntyre | Cracked Rib | 14th - 24th November

About

The exhibition centres around a new body of work, created in her native Canada, alongside a new screenprint edtition, created in Jealous Print Studios. Puppies, deer and cats strut confidently across McIntyre’s new body of work, surrounded by fora and fauna in the peak of their beautiful existence, springing to life in bold colours. Alongside, others are somewhat expired, wilting against the strong blocks of colour assertively applied to the raw canvas. Others still are reduced to abstracted lines, the suggestion of form created through bold brushmarks, bouncing across the canvas as if created from a spring.

A deeper look into the canvas reveals McIntyre’s secret language of layers. Peeking out from the vibrant colours a flash of text, a worm, a discarded sock. These cultural references give a sense of place, a glimpse of humanity, away from the constructed realities we create for ourselves.

Life and death, love and loss, beautiful and grotesque, earthly pleasures are what humans have created for themselves. Except no delight or pleasure can last forever and this exhibition serves to remind us. Beauty is created within chaos and destruction, the perfect oxymoron for humankind.

“’Cracked Rib’ is an idea of finding paradise among chaos and destruction. I am interested in humanity’s inclination to create a paradise for themselves and find harmony in disorder. We know things right now are crap in the world and as a result, I have no desire as an artist to add more doom and gloom to it. It doesn’t help me anymore. If you really sit and take time with the bombardment of images, stories, news, ads, it can make you feel helpless and dizzy at the same time. This body of work is the antithesis of that- it came out of finding still moments, tucked around the corner, or in the back garden, such as watching a bee buzz by. I simply asked myself the question - what makes humans happy? What makes us happy? Perhaps it’s cliché, but I felt inspired by it. I have a lot of reference to the 90’s in the work. I grew up in the 90’s and had obsession with things like 101 Dalmatians, Pop Rocks candy, cartoon and animals. So that essence of my childhood came through as I made the work.” – Allly McIntyre