Danica Lundy - Boombox
There is no inner beauty in Danica Lundy’s world. Just tendons and bone and the imprint on skin from bad tattoos. By attempting to quite literally visualise the body from both inside and out, Lundy reveals something far more uncomfortable: we are disgusting. At least that’s my takeaway from these scenes depicting the everyday, often forgettable, banalities of life.
To the uninitiated Lundy’s works can be hard to comprehend. They look like mixed-up, semi-transparent blends of people and machinery. Cables and car parts interrupted by heads and appendages that appear to be attached to shy apparitions that can’t decide if they want to fully reveal themselves. Nothing is whole. The people are depicted as a weird combination of external shells and exposed innards, often visually similar to a CT brain scan.
The immediate impulse is to try to figure out just what the heck is going on in each scene. This isn’t always easy, thanks to the multi-layered effects and confusing fisheye, Escher-like compositions. But there are plenty of clues. You just need to start with whatever is most obvious — a bathroom sink, the steering wheel of an automobile, etc — and then work your way backwards. The perspective is frequently from someone that’s smack in the middle of the scene, with a full 180° view of, and often right through, everything in front of them.
Lundy’s world is painted with a gritty colour palette that brings extra attention to the grime of life. The more I’m able to make things out, the more repulsed I get. It’s hard not to miss the bin overflowing with eggshells and lemon rinds, sitting right next to a food pick-up counter in a cafe. Or a girl snogging in a bathroom while someone vomits in the stall. X-ray vision shows you that she has a tampon inserted, which may or may not explain the disinterested face of the man she’s embracing. In fact, almost all the faces you’ll see appear stoic and emotionless. One scene depicts the front row of a concert, the audience squashed up against the stage facing upwards like a horde of zombies. Who stands directly in front of a musician and doesn’t show some kind of interest? What’s wrong with these people?
The textured paint strokes and inside-out imagery make most of Lundy’s characters look like they just stepped out of a Gunther von Hagens display, but there’s clearly something deeper happening. There’s no joy, there’s no sadness, there’s almost no vested interest at all from anyone I see. Whether working out at the gym or grabbing a ready meal at the drive-through, Lundy’s people appear to be trudging their way through life. It makes me wonder if the transparency effect is an unsubtle metaphor for a shallow existence.
Peeling back the layers in these onions just makes me wince, exposing the blood and puss and guts of life. Thankfully the works are so large that the unpleasantness fades away if you lean in closely to examine the many subtle details often lightly scraped into the paint, or barely even visible. Etchings on a power plug. A car’s radio display. Fingerprints so ridged they look like a mountain range and the ghostly reflection of a girl on a glistening cold beer bottle. That last one I didn’t even spot until I carefully studied my photos after the show.
The paintings are dirty, gruesome and relentless except for one work: Quiet night at the NICU. It depicts a newborn baby. The artist’s first child, delivered premature. It is the only human figure in the show rendered whole. Mum clearly wasn’t wearing the x-ray specs when she lovingly painted her child. That poor infant doesn’t yet know just how lucky it is, nestled safely inside an incubator through which severed arms reach in to cradle it, while a giant fly crawls on the plastic enclosure to get a closer look. The gristle and grime of life hasn’t yet corrupted this child, but it is surely coming.
Plan your visit
‘Boombox’ runs until 29 June.
Visit whitecube.com and follow @whitecube on Instagram for more info about the venue.
Visit danicalundy.com and follow @danicalundy on Instagram for more info about the artist.
PLUS…
Check the What’s On page so you don’t miss any other great shows closing soon.
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