EXHIBITIONS: Viky Garden - New World Virtues

Artist:

Viky Garden

Title:

Red I

Medium:

Oil on jute

Size:

80 x 100cm

Date:

2008

Price:

$8,500

Sold:

Yes

Preview Tuesday 5th August 2008 - Exhibition continues until 23rd August 2008 New World Virtues will be Viky Garden's 18th solo show. Once again Garden uses[read more] herself as a model within a predominantly socio-political narrative framework in which various contemporary issues are considered, particularly the pervasive impact of communications technology. Subtext is fundamental to Garden’s painting and background patterning is often used as a spatial and compositional tool. For example, in New World Virtues II the map of the world is deliberately confused to suggest that modern communications technology has altered our appreciation of the world we live in. The pattern reveals its own history from a drawing to a painting - the “mapping” of the composition. There is a keen sense of nostalgia in these works, but it is entirely free of sentiment. Instead, the young female protagonists suggest a certain vulnerability. The mobile-phone is used as an icon of modern technology, simultaneously alluding to the contradiction of connection and isolation. The seductive power of technology is highlighted in the painting 'Annunciation 2008' where the young protagonist is seen capturing the image of an angel, an image which can be flashed around the world in a nanosecond, converting the intimate and the personal to a public commodity. All the while, the impetuous young girl is oblivious to the implications of her actions.