Sadie Lee: Shocking Blue: Paintings of Sandy Powell and Other Stories
For her first solo show at New Art Projects British Painter Sadie Lee has taken the title from Shocking Blue, a Dutch-based Rockand Pop band from the late 60’s and early 70’s, whose biggest hit was Venus. In this show Lee looks at gender through this lens and finds a contemporary vision of Venus that explores both gender and identity.
Lee has made six new portraits of Academy Award winning costume designer Sandy Powell. The paintings are displayed in pairs, representing the front and back of the same pose, which mirror the style of costume designs. The reverse pose suggests the pictorial trope of the ‘Rückenfigur’, particularly the Caspar David Friedrich painting ‘Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog’, which this pose closely resembles.
Sadie Lee is aware of these poses resembling old-fashioned paper dress dolls where you can change the outfits with fold-over tabs. As a result here the costume designer becomes the vehicle for costume itself and a metaphor for change and transformation. The pose that Sandy Powell adopts is the classic stance of three quarter profile with hand on hip, similar to the promotional image of Tilda Swinton in Sally Potter’s Orlando, which she designed the costumes for. As a collection of works, the artist refers to the completed series as ‘Sadie Does Sandy’.
Also on display is a mannequin dressed in Sandy Powell’s shirt, tie and suit, which feature in the paintings. Sandy Powell wears blue, and blue mostly refers to the suit that Sandy is wearing (and not wearing) in the portraits. Her suit is an exact copy of the Freddie Buretti satin suit that Bowie wore in the video for Life On Mars and Powell’s hair is dyed a similar shade of orange to Bowie’s, underlining her connection to Bowie’s style from this era. Bowie’s / Powell’s suits also reference the blue satin of Gainsborough’s Blue Boy.
Blue is a significant colour in the relationship between Sadie Lee and Sandy Powell. They met when Powell bought a painting by Lee in the mid-90’s, which referenced Picasso’s blue period painting La Femme En Chemise. The work by Lee was a painting called La Butch En Chemise and is notable for its shocking blue background. Sandy Powell was a very close friend of Derek Jarman, for whom blue became symbolic and important.
In both rooms of this ground-breaking show, Sadie Lee continues her investigation into ways of presenting gender, and the constructed and performative nature of costume and stance through both dressing up and dressing down. Through her portraits Lee discusses and focuses on the shifting nature of binary and non-binary definitions of gender and identity and through her choice of sitters focuses on the people and the moments in our recent history that have marked milestone changes in the perception of gender that have changed and continue to change society.
The second room of her show will consist of a never-seen-before diptych of non-binary writer Libro (formerly Laura) Bridgeman.
Also in the room will be two paintings, ‘Holly Woodlawn Dressing’ II and III, from Lee’s series ‘And Then He Was A She – Paintings of Holly Woodlawn’ from 2007. These two paintings are of Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn putting on a blue satin dress. The title of the series is the first verse of Lou Reed’s hit song Walk On The Wild Side, which documented Woodlawn’s transition from Miami To New York and her transition from Harold to Holly. There will also be two new paintings, ‘Concealer’ and ‘Fascinator’, both created for this show in 2021.
Exhibition open Friday 5th November – Sat 23th December 2021
Franko B Solo Show
In 2019 Franko B was commissioned to make a major exhibition and installation at Rua Red in Dublin curated by a/political. New Arts Project presents two major pieces from the show for a London Audience in 2021 and to include them in this, his first solo show at New Art Projects.
Franko B was raised in an Italian orphanage and Boarding School run by the Italian Red Cross, and it these experiences that he discusses in this exhibition. He has created a particular vision of a childhood surrounded by many other childhoods and alongside images of home, such as it was, and as how it could have been.
Working in glazed ceramics which he fires in his own kiln, B has made multiple small childlike figures that together form a giant red cross and a giant heart. Fixed onto the walls, they collectively form, document and represent all of the children who like Franko, passed through the hands of the Red Cross and comment on the continuing scandals and abuse of vulnerable children. The resulting installations are monumental in scale placing the viewer in front of towering walls that represent the scale and scope of the problem.
Smaller in scale and displayed on plinths, are ‘Houses’ which Franko B has constructed out of sheets of glazed, fired clay. These houses represent the safe spaces that are constructed by the mind, which stand up as walls of protection, to enclose historical events and memories. As with much of B’s work they resonate with love, memory and loss, and become poetic reminders of security, once held dear.
Franko B has also included a series of portraits on mirrored glass. These works both represent images to the viewer and reflect the viewing drawing your own image into the work. Along side these pieces are some new objects Franko B has been making in his kiln, Constructed from delicate white glazed ceramic, and embellished with gold and silver leaf, these small sculptures are figurative, abstract and votive. The combine a tactile surface with a fragility that singles them out as both precious and desirable .
Franko B (1960) was born in Milan. His practice spans drawing, installation, performance and sculpture. A pioneer of body art and a leading performance artist and activist, Franko B uses his body as a tool to explore the themes of the personal, political, poetic, resistance, suffering and the reminder of our own mortality and vulnerability.
Franko B lives and works in London and is a professor of Sculpture at L’Accademia Albertina Di Belle Arti di Torino, Italy. He is also a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London. He has performed and exhibited work internationally including at: Tate Modern; ICA (London); South London Gallery; Arnolfini (Bristol); Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels); Beaconsfield Contemporary Art (London); Bluecoat Museum (Liverpool); Tate Liverpool; Ruarts Foundation (Moscow); PAC (Milian); Contemporary Art Centre (Copenhagen) and many more. His works are included in many international public and private collections including: Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, South London Gallery, and the permanent collection of the city of Milan.
Thursday 04 November 2021 – Saturday 23 December 2021. Gallery open Wednesday – Sat 11.00 – 6.00 or by appointment.
New Art Projects. 6D Sheep Lane, London E8 4QS. Nearest Tube Bethnal Green. Nearest Overground Cambridge Heath, London Fields.
