Traditional Portraits Are Reimagined in an Exploration of Concealment and Identity by Shawn Huckins
“The Artist’s Wardrobe, Mary Greene (after Copley)” (2022). All pictures © Shawn Huckins, shared with permission
A brand new collection of work by New Hampshire-based artist Shawn Huckins (beforehand) proposes serious about how we put on clothes and textiles in a contemporary gentle. Soiled Laundry continues the artist’s curiosity in re-interpreting 18th- and Nineteenth-Century European portraiture, an inventive custom steeped in symbolism and delicate commentary about wealth and sophistication. The clothes donned by the topics of painters like John Singleton Copley or Adriaen van der Werff mirrored their standing and sense of self by means of attire and equipment. Jean-Léon Gérôme’s depiction of a Bashi-Bazouk, a soldier of the Ottoman Empire, is a prescient touch upon the character of garments and uniform, as these enlisted had been typically unpaid and wearing a haphazard mixture of items they acquired whereas on the march.
Huckins places a playful, modern twist on the notion of expressing one’s identification by means of material by obscuring his topics’ faces virtually totally, prompting the viewer to contemplate what it means to be cloaked or uncovered. The artist recreated the compositions within the studio by draping a mannequin with a wide range of clothes, mimicking the course and temperature of the sunshine within the unique works in acrylic paint.
With their faces coated utterly, the sitters are recognized solely by means of objects equivalent to a string of pearls, a beloved canine, or a handful of fruit. Huckins says in an announcement that “something extra that could be recognized about these folks stays hidden beneath piles of fabric and clothes so ubiquitous it may very well be our personal.” Using fashionable materials like buffalo plaid or gingham, the artist considers how all of us costume to convey details about ourselves.
Soiled Laundry can also be the title of the artist’s upcoming solo exhibition with Duran Mashaal Gallery in Montréal, which opens on June 2. You’ll find extra of his work on his website and Instagram. (by way of Creative Boom)
“Numerous Materials, Bashi-Bazouk (after Gerome)” (2022)
“Pink and Black, Mrs. Freeman Flower (after Highmore)” (2022)
“Sample No. 4, Winslow Warren (after Copley)” (2022)
“Yellow and Blue, Portrait of A Girl (after Hudson)” (2022)
“Numerous Materials, Margareta Rees (after van der Werff)” (2022)
“Numerous Materials, John Park with Canine (after Stuart)” (2022)
“American Portrait, Elizabeth Murray (after Copley)” (2022)
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