Exhibition Information

Moonflower
2021 (출처=vsf) Oil on canvas 78.75 x 102.4 cm

			Various Small Fires is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Sara Anstis, the artist’s first with the gallery and in Asia. Bundle offers a glimpse inside the artist’s world through recent works on paper and canvas.

 

Anstis' figures inhabit an environment ripe with dreamlike elements. Each naked body, rendered in brilliantly colored pigments, exudes both vulnerability and authority. An aura of sensuality is developed by the artist’s use of soft pastels. For the artist, the act of rubbing and touching has become a means for finding her work through an unmediated connection between her fingers and the papers skin-like surface. Paintings on canvas, a more recent development in her practice, translate the artist’s touch on a grander scale and in an equally enticing manner.

 

The figures in these works are almost always in a state of embrace: an arm caressed around a shoulder, or the reassuring touch of a hand. These emblems of tenderness and care speak to a sense of solidarity shared by the figures of Anstis’s otherworldly universe while also signaling profound relationships between them. The nature of these relationships are open for interpretation, though a number of works suggest Anstis’ interest in the complicated nature of maternal bonds. More ambiguously, they also speak of characters grappling with their connection to the landscape they occupy, as well as with the intricacies of surrogacy, loneliness and bloat. There is an emphasis on the difference in scale between entities and the power imbalances affecting them. In Small Mother (all works 2021), a large, pregnant woman tenderly holds a smaller adult figure in a composition reminiscent of the Madonna and Child.

 

The exhibition’s largest work, Moonflower, encapsulates a surreal tone that rings throughout. Three figures sit before a dark background: one painted in a vibrant bloody red reaches to her neighbor while the third points out a wound on her leg. Each woman’s face remains calmly composed, establishing a false serenity that is echoed by the poisonous blooming moonflowers and a dog stretching nervously in the shadows. The work’s central figure notably looks out to the viewer, inviting one to contemplate their place in Anstis’ sublime universe.

 

Sara Anstis (b. 1991, Stockholm, Sweden, lives and works in London, United Kingdom) received a BFA in Studio Art and Sociology at Concordia University, Montreal and an MFA from Valand Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden. In 2018, she completed the Drawing Year Postgraduate Programme at The Royal Drawing School, London. The artist has had solo shows at Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal, and Fabian Lang, Zurich. Recent group exhibitions include, Kunsternerforbundet, Oslo; Kasmin Gallery, New York; Galerie Derouillon, Paris; Lyles & King, New York; and Palazzo Monti, Brescia. She has received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Jerwood Arts Bursary, and the Anna-Lisa Thomson Foundation amongst others.


(Source=vsf)