Transformers: Portraits by Sadie Lee
Ketchum Pleon, 35-41 Folgate Street, London, E1
6BX
27 August - 19 October 2012
Sadie Lee (born 1967) is not an artist who usually paints to
commission. Her photo-realistic style is brutally honest, stripping
her subjects - often quite literally - bare, revealing their inner
identities, and questioning their outward presentation, both in
terms of gender and sexuality.
Lee first came to public attention 20 years ago, when her
painting 'Erect'was selected for inclusion in the National Portrait
Gallery's BP Portrait Award. The work, depicting herself and her
partner, androgynously clothed and styled, sitting apart and
glowering, but with their arms entwined, was used as the poster
image, and, within weeks, it was a sell out. This was followed, two
years later, by Lee's first solo show, held in Manchester as part
of the annual 'It's Queer Up North' arts festival. Since then, her
star has been rising, and, until 19 October, a selection of her
works can be seen in PR agency Ketchum Pleon's
reception-area-cum-gallery, located at the boundary between the
City and trendy arts hub Shoreditch.
The show's name, 'Transformers', is taken from the title of Lou
Reed's second solo album, featuring the hit song 'Walk on the Wild
Side', which begins:
Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
In October 2006, Lee spent a week with legendary drag queen, and
one of the few surviving members of Andy Warhol's 'Factory' clique,
Holly Woodlawn, to whom these lines make reference. Lee went daily
to Woodlawn's Los Angeles apartment, asked her to perform, and took
a series of photographs. From these, she worked up a number of
large-scale oil paintings, one of which shows Woodlawn posing,
resplendent in a flowing mustard gown, and, with sculpted red
curls, a gender-bending twist on the traditional Pre-Raphaelite
woman. The other two works, however, reveal what lies beneath, and
show Woodlawn in a state of semi-undress, struggling with her zip,
heavily made-up but equally heavily wrinkled, with folds of excess
skin, a receding hairline, and a sense of vulnerability well hidden
in her better known stage persona.
This sense of alter ego, of exposure, and of bearing the weight
of a parallel life, is carried over into the other portraits on
display, all taken from the previous exhibition 'Pin Ups', which
was first shown in Liverpool as part of Homotopia's 2011 arts
festival. These works form an homage to some of Lee's personal
favourite underground icons, including performance artist David
Hoyle (see image), actress Rita Tushingham, photographer and host
of pop-up events Stav Bee, fellow painter Matthew Stradling,
artists' model Frank Sweet, and professional pin up Anderrida
Shurville. Each sitter is lit from below, creating a shadow which
hovers almost menacingly behind, and exaggerating the features
already caricatured in Lee's typical manner. With Stradling, for
instance, behind the nipple tassels, diamante earrings, and goatee,
we see scars, pimples, and a vicious shaving rash. Nothing remains
hidden, no hole unbarred. And yet the Pin Ups stare challenging
back, demanding direct eye contact, unashamed and unabashed. The
question reverberates: how do these characters - and the real
people behind the façades - fit in with stereotypical gender roles?
How much is the understanding of masculinity and femininity reliant
on and reinforced by the use of make-up, costume, and stance?
Meeting the gaze of the performers depicted here, one feels
confronted by one's own image, and begins to wonder just how much
of our own daily routine is but a performance as well.
http://www.facebook.com/sadieleeart
Original paintings and limited edition giclee prints
are available to buy throughout the exhibition as well as from http://www.ukcreatives.net
Anna McNay
https://sites.google.com/site/annamcnay/
http://art-corpus.blogspot.co.uk/
twitter: @annamcnay
Image:
David Hoyle by Sadie Lee
Oil on canvas
2011
