Exhibition
Jessie Makinson: Fake French
9 Jun 2016 – 15 Jul 2016
Regular hours
- Thursday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Friday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 17:00
- Wednesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- 69 Roman Road
- London
- E2 0QN
- United Kingdom
‘Fake French’ is a playful turn of phrase, one that holds multiple colloquial meanings; but as the title of Jessie Makinson’s solo exhibition at Roman Road it imbues the idea of falseness and façade, more pertinently in the representation and role of women in art and contemporary society today.
About
Even after decades of feminism, the demands on women to fulfil and maintain societal expectations of appearance and status are prevalent. With the prolific address of the standards of style and beauty set forth by the media and surgical advances, these expectations have played an active role in the conceptualisation and disruption of value of women today. Observing the ways in which female subjects are often used as a prop to reflect such views, Jessie’s multi-figure paintings of women animate her interest in contemporary feminism, augmenting its sundry contradictions through ribald depictions and non-linear narratives.
By evoking the nostalgia of an oriental boudoir, Jessie's recent works interplay contemporary ideas of femininity and cultural appropriation. Often draped in patterned fabrics, a demonstrable reference to domesticity, her paintings of somnambulant females at once draw on the reciprocal relationship between fashion and art. Using new motifs from French fabric designs, such as leaves, basket weave and animal print, she adopts and instils the romanticism of the ‘Parisian chic’ as the epitome of style, orienting the canons of beauty that women are expected to portray. Along with the vibrant display of her recent paintings, the exhibition will also feature four framed drawings by the artist.