Danica Lundy - Stop Bath
Think about the most disorganised storage space you have. Maybe it’s a junk drawer in your kitchen. Or a handbag crammed full of crap. Whatever you’ve got in mind, I now want you to imagine yourself shrunk down to insect size, standing in the midst of it all, looking back at yourself with x-ray eyes. That’s the best way I can find to describe these paintings by Danica Lundy.
Initially I found them off-putting. The colour palette is muddled and drab. The perspectives and vantage points are not just obscure, they’re obscured: items overlap and elements often block your view. Everything’s oddly recognisable, yet it’s hard to know what’s happening because of the unfamiliar angles and often transparent layering. This is not easy art, and it gets a lot weirder when it comes to the people.
A femur appears in the leg of a driver whose head melts into her headrest. A deathly pale woman’s eyes are colourfully illuminated by a waterfall of light streaming into her sink. Faces in a rugby scrum blur or blend together. Figures are surrounded by stuff yet everyone looks isolated and alone, even whey they aren’t. These works are incredibly hard to comprehend even after you get the gist.
The artist’s father passed away shortly before these works were made. That might explain the feelings of sadness and loss I get when I look at them. They’re also confusing. Scary and chaotic in the way they are framed. So much so that I probably spent too much time trying to figure them out. I’m not sure what they’re saying, and I’m still not sure how they make me feel. I find that to be the most worrying thing about them.
At White Cube (@whitecube) until 11 Sep
Visit danicalundy.com or follow @danicalundy on Instagram for more info about the artist