Imogen McMahon
Conservatorium High School
CALM IN THE PANIC ROOM - ALL DREAMS HAVE EDGE
Collection of Work
Ceramics, acrylic paint, paper
"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll. My body of work represents the ideas of loneliness, confinement and isolation within a space of safety. Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat is both a guiding figure and a threat, expressing the darker thoughts within our imagination, especially during night-time hours when our imaginations are free to 'run wild'.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Georges de La Tour; Gregory Crewdson; Edward Hopper.
Marker's Commentary
Calm in the Panic Room-All Dreams Have Edge is a highly ambitious collection of work, expressing incisive ideas that are elaborated and sustained across the paintings and sculptural forms. The tightly cropped paintings create a playful, yet sinister narrative which transcend the variety of interiors still-life with the camouflaged and hidden cats. The illustrative styled paintings, with a restricted blue and purple colour palette, are witty, yet evoke a sense of horror, suspense and isolation as one may see in surreal illustrations referencing children's stories, for example Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat motif and Where the Wild Things Are.
The ingenious inclusion of the hand-built ceramic cats adds layers of meaning and further creates audience engagement. The bas-relief heads, reminiscent of hunting trophies, are meticulously sculpted and hand painted in the same restricted colour palette. The monstrous feline's heads depict various contorted faces, animating their trapped and evil expressions. The three soft, round, sleepy forms of the placid cats evoke a peaceful presence, juxtaposing the nightmarish scenes of the claustrophobic panic room