Roderick Bunter, Janet Callinicos, Chris Howlett, Anna Jackson, Peter Storey, Chris Worfold
It seems only fitting at this fin de siecle moment that inquiries and reflections into matters of life and death should infiltrate artistic practice and exhibition spaces. Not that such matters have been overlooked in the past, but rather that they seem to take on more significance at this particular time, pointing to various experiences and observations of human frailty. The vapid hype and consumerism of contemporary capitalism is one thing, but the more-than-skin-deep existential consideration of the human condition within it is quite another.
Of course, that such a thing as 'the' human condition exists is open for conjecture, and the works in From The Cradle To The Grave seem to operate as a series of inflections rather than as exposition. They both delight and disturb as they survey a range of deeply emotional and personal life experiences. Curator, Chris Worfold has described the exhibition as addressing the fear of the 'everyday'. However, each work generates and imbues varying responses, repetitions and intensities; fear is but one of them and irony is notable among the others, especially those of Roderick Bunter, Chris Howlett, Anna Jackson and Peter Storey. In the fracturing implicit in irony, perversion and pleasure meld on the ground of jouissance, heaven on earth. Bunter's painting, Talking to the Tax Man about Satan's Superhighway (time is money) BIG DEAL offers a more materialistic and satirical view of everyday life whereby good and evil are conflated. There's a certain complacency about its menace, the lure of satiation, which translates almost as 'life's a bitch, then you die', or alternately 'your time will come'.
Jackson's and Storey's irony lies in their referencing of the eidetic imaginary. In a