ELASTIC SELF
Cassandra Agazzi Brooks
Private View: Monday 7th January 2019 (6pm - 8pm)
Basement and Stairwell Gallery: Tuesday 8th January - Thursday 28th February 2019
Open: 12pm - 6pm (Sun 1pm - 4pm)
Cassandra Agazzi Brooks was awarded the FaB Bath Open Art Gallery Prize 2018 and 44AD artspace is delighted to present her solo show Elastic Self.
I’m a painter based in my hometown of Plymouth. I’ve just finished studying for an MA in Painting at Plymouth College of Art having graduated from Brighton University back in 2010. A prize from a competition at the Bath Fringe Festival to have a solo exhibition at 44AD artspace has given me a wonderful opportunity to gather my work together from the past year, and also an excuse to explore Bath more!
In thinking about my practice, which has been inspired by the multiple-faces of the alterego, from drag queens & bestial figures, to clowns, I began rethinking the illusion in painting and what my practice could conceal, and perhaps also reveal. In smothering a canvas with paint, or veiling a face with makeup, could there paradoxically be a revealing of a deeper human truth? In taking advantage of the freedom of being at Plymouth College of Art, I began to break away from the flat surface of a stretched canvas and expand my painting towards a more sculptural form, creating the CLOD, which is made up of 42 large brightly painted hessian sacks, each loosely resembling a smiling clown face (children seem to be their biggest fans). I invite anyone visiting to ‘prod a CLOD’ but also to enjoy the variety of strange and comical painted characters that will be on show.
C.A.Brooks 2018