9 March - 8 April 2001
From the sensibility of a fantasy collagist Kirsten Glass collects, samples and reenacts style-mag chic scenes; in the process she unlocks and articulates an attendant drama suffused in the surface of the paint, the canvas and the picture plane.
Miami Nice is the latest in an ongoing series of paintings made from the same basic variables; magazine imagery, baseline text and a constant black background. Each painting begins with a small collage from Vogue, The Face, Dazed and Confused etc...
Glass sees the fashion story as preprocessed material - the elements of design, composition, lighting, makeup, hair and pose have all been directed to create a particular mood and to produce feelings in the reader. Cutting out and rearranging images from stacks of magazines she redirects her own 'shoot' and through her immersion in the painting conflates a dehumanised magazine-mentality character with the possibility of a personal narrative and individual expression.
In other recent paintings a bloody nose undercuts a too-pretty look and a vacant stare looks great with hollow cheeks. The paintings, however, avoid simple critique by coming from almost exactly the same point of view as the fashion photographer, who actively constructs the fantasy world of emotionally expressive ideals.
Miami Nice 2001
Acrylic and oil on canvas,