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Stuart Bailey's recent installation at ANCA Gallery combines trashy throwaway references in disconcerting assemblages. His multi-panel works employ iconic coconuts; all familiar visual cliches humorously redeployed. They were conceived while travelling through Mexico and the United States, however these paintings seem to owe more to fantasy than observation.
Bailey's influences are obviously derived from various forms of popular culture: stencil art, tagging, animation, comics, cartoons and even product packaging. Despite their eclecticism, and the fragmentary style of display, the works in this collection have certain coherence when viewed together. The title of the show is a clue to the linking motif of the palm tree which has a distinct presence throughout, even when absent.
For Bailey, palm trees carry inescapable connotations of indulgence, escape and the lure of Hollywood. However he consistently undercuts the overdetermined glamour of the palm tree by placing it alongside disturbing details. For instance, Power Plant humorously juxtaposes coconuts and the defiant upward thrust of a fist, in the form of a placard. Masquerading as a symbol of protest, Power Plant has no overtly didactic message to deliver, except for a vaguely obscene visual joke. Meanwhile Package Deal features a number of variations on the palm theme, with a nasty looking spider crouching beneath, waiting to ambush the unwary.
Using gaudy pastel colours reminiscent of advertising, an imagined island paradise is juxtaposed with details that suggest menace. In the wall painting Sticky Palms II, a dreamlike pink landscape fades to the distance in silhouette, while a tiny man is besieged by flies on the outskirts of the frame. He embodies the nightmarish qualities of this too-perfect isle. Above this deceptively beautiful terrain, a chain hangs