the belinda jackson exhibition of young artists
Notable in Primavera 2000 is the absence of artists working with sound and screen-based media. In place of video and computer-based works are paintings, photography and handmade objects and installations which explore diverse yet overlapping concerns: diasporic identity, constructions of masculinity and femininity, the body, the everyday, the relationship between animals and humans, and the influence of the media-magazines, film and television- in contemporary western society.
In Daughter Aid: A Strategy for Dealing with Daddy When He Happens to be Joseph Beuys, 1999-2000, Beata Batorowicz poses as the fictitious daughter of Beuys in order to explore more generally the complex relationship between fathers and daughters. In a series of large-scale colour photographs Batorowicz wears head pieces and muzzles resembling foxes or rats and made from Beuys's favoured materials of fur and felt. Words written across the photographs refer to Beuys's work and his war-time experiences, and chart the daughter's attempt to establish her own identity independent from her dominant father: 'Daddy, you can't muzzle my thoughts' and 'Daddy I prefer to stay with all the fur balls in the forest'. More compelling are Batorowicz's head pieces and muzzles and her series of 'feminine' objects-a compact, tweezers and nail scissors- which are covered with fur and transformed into animal-like forms. With their plastic eyes, fluffy fur and whiskers, the costumes are reminiscent of stuffed toys or goofy cartoon characters, yet the muzzles and leather straps have more sinister connotations, pointing to the daughter's difficult relationship with 'Daddy'.
Like Batorowicz, David Sequeira adopts a persona in his work but in his case to playfully comment on cultural identity. In David as Akbar, 1996-2000-a series of miniature portraits painted by Indian artist Yaswant-Sequeira