Look at the work of artist’s Boo Ritson & Phillip Guston and consider what questions these aretworks raise.

Boo Ritson (b.1969)

Boo Ritson paints people, not on canvas or on board – she literally coats people with paint. Using a household emulsion paint, she covers the hair, face and clothing of her models to produce portraits of American cultural stereotypes: glamour girl, swimmer, Librarian, cowgirl, policeman etc.

Her models, whilst fundamental to her work, are by all accounts merely a blank canvas on which to paint. They bare no personal attributes to the resulting, expressionless painted façade of textured paint that replicates an American stereotype. The outcome is a three-dimensional figure that boarders between sculpture and painting, Kitsch and POP art and a wax figure.  

The paint dries quickly so she has limited time to paint and photograph her work before the paint is washed off.  As a viewer, we only see the photograph.  Interviewed at the Saatchi Gallery, Ritson spoke of the need to create something new and having the final say what it may look like. This unique approach goes someway to addressing her artistic and personal needs, and reflects a temporary fleeting existence like a sand castle on the beach.

Rachel Russell enacting Philip Guston

Rachel Russell’s The Studio is an enactment of Philip Guston’s 1969 painting The Studio which represents Guston’s familiar hooded character as the Artist protagonist painting his self-portrait. At first glance I found it somewhat humorous and considered if this was intentional and a reflection of Guston’s own cynical humour. However, once you get past the satire, the piece was quite captivating.

I felt that there was a wider visual context to the video, albeit encompassed by the performance of painting a self-portrait painting. Paints, palette, easel, clock, light bulb on a cord and smoking cigarette and replicated as two-dimension props whist a costumed figure paints a self-portrait. The piece conveys a working studio as seen or envisaged by Guston.  Take away the props and the piece would lose its significance.

Reference:

Davies, L., 2011. Boo Ritson. [online] AnOther. Available at: <https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/1583/boo-ritson&gt; [Accessed 13 April 2020].

O’Hagan, S., 2004. The Everyday Genius Of Artist Philip Guston. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/jan/11/art&gt; [Accessed 13 April 2020].

Ritson, B., 2020. Boo Ritson – Artist – Genesis Imaging. [online] Genesis Imaging. Available at: <https://genesisimaging.co.uk/clients/boo-ritson-artist/&gt; [Accessed 13 April 2020].

Russell, R., 2012. Rachel Russell. [online] Rachel Russell. Available at: <http://www.rachelrussell.co.uk/#/gipfel/&gt; [Accessed 13 April 2020].

Saatchigallery.com. n.d. Boo Ritson – Articles – The Saatchi Gallery. [online] Available at: <https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/boo_ritson_articles.htm&gt; [Accessed 13 April 2020].