Collections

As with any of the collections you see among these pages, it's important to examine why it is, as much as what it is. You might easily intuit that these works are reimaginings of classical paintings, depicting the heroes of their time, superimposed with modern accoutrements in the form of iconic and instantly-recognisable Lucha Libre wrestling masks. At first, the concept may appear vaguely comical or frivolous, with paint daubed boldly in an effort to deface, or reface, the historical and familiar versions. But the intention is much more thought-provoking than that.

This series began around the time of Brexit, and Trump's Make America Great Again rhetoric - an undoubtedly regressive period in politics that is as sadly and shockingly apt today with current ideologies of returning to a 'perfect' bygone era of heroism. But was it, in actuality? Consider the paintings of the Romantic Era. Paid for by the subject and therefore malleable to his whim, you're invited to explore the notion of classical painters being the Photoshop of their day, taking reality and augmenting it to suit the eye of the beholder. No truer than in the myriad of paintings of Napoleon, whose captured image was at vast odds with physical accounts from this side of the channel. And so, can it be true that at a time when people threw their sewage onto the street, everything really was more rose-tinted? Or, more likely, that we are served these alter egos (from the Latin 'Other I'), or second selves, and just expected to accept them?

Behind the Mask
The mask you see depicted in this series is that of the Blue Demon, one of Mexico's most infamous wrestlers. The embedded thinking is that these masks bring with them great transformation, turning the wearer from ordinary to extraordinary. So ingrained is this culture that when the Blue Demon - Alejandro Munoz Moreno - died in 2000, he was buried in the mask that had hidden his regular self from the public for so many years, blurring the lines of who we really are and what we show to others. Flash forward to today's selfie-obsessed social media fodder and we can see little has changed. Still a prevalence of glamorous and filtered versions of reality - from the woman who has it all to the cookie-cutter family, by way of he-of-the-perfect-abs and bod goals. Cutting (quite literally) the mundane and the austere that is most people's 'irl', without ever pasting.

In essence, what's captured is the idea that we have always worn a mask, or version of, for time immemorial. For the persona we want to be seen, while containing the seemingly lesser within. No truer perhaps than with those in positions of wealth or power, leaving us with the ever-present question of who or what to believe.

The juxtaposition of these precise paintings with their more freely-rendered masks presents this idea of 'deface value' in an enduring and interesting way, which has resulted in a seemingly-universal appeal. They have now been bought and exhibited internationally and continue to garner much acclaim.

"Mr World' (2018)

Art Below poster in London Underground, part of Mayfair Art Week. Jun 2018

Monumental exhibiting at Joseph Fine Arts