History collapses in on itself

Dexter Dalwood makes imagined paintings of famous places that he has never seen, imbuing them with new meaning by weaving together often disparate personal, social and historical elements. In his works, history collapses in on itself, which is appropriate for an artist whose work has its roots in the 1980s, a decade characterised by the rise and fall of historical illusions, in which an actor was appointed president, the Soviet Union collapsed and Margaret Thatcher postured as Winston Churchill.

Dalwood works in the traditional genre of historical painting to reflect on what has become important to us, and how superfluous information has become in this mass media age. Like historical paintings, Dalwood's works are full of highly codified allusions and references- but the twist is that those allusions and references are to art history itself, and popular history. They depict places that have become notorious in the collective consciousness, from Yalta- in which a Jasper Johns style map hangs over the heads of the men from Dr Strangelove, equating the conference to a parody, an imperialistic sham



Yalta, Dalwood- 2006

Map, Jasper Johns- 1961



Film still from Dr Strangelove

- to Bay of Pigs, which imitates a scene from Apocalypse Now, and its shoreline is an upside down image of Picasso's version of Le dejeuner sur l'herbe. As with the Picasso example, Dalwood often uses elements from artworks which are perhaps not thematically linked to his subjects, but which are temporally linked- Picasso finished that painting on the same day the crisis began. (Dalwood often uses elements from the works of Picasso, who was himself a master manipulator of art history and its styles.


Bay of Pigs, Dalwood- 2004



Film still from Apocalypse Now



Le dejeuner sur l'herbe, Picasso- 1961

Some of these places are not of political intrigue, but are rather more salacious, reflecting our interest in gore and the horrific- Sharon Tate's house, and Room 100 at the Chelsea Hotel, site of the alleged murder of Nancy Spungen by Sid Vicious. These images have a seedy realism, reflecting how they were glamourised in the media, indeed, after Tate's murder, Life magazine ran an article which pictured her late husband standing by her dried blood on the carpet.

Sharon Tate's House, Dalwood- 1998

Room 100 at the Chelsea Hotel, Dalwood- 1999

Dalwood also uses this visual language of glamour magazines to create portraits of the famous, or rather, of the infamous. They are devoid of any figures, instead relying on symbolic elements to depict their subjects- Liberace's house is swathed from floor to ceiling in pink, whilst beside McCarthy's desk is the globe with which he can monitor the axis of evil- and on their composition to convey Dalwood's criticisms.

The Liberace Museum, Dalwood- 1998

McCarthy's List, Dalwood- 2002

 For instance, Kurt Cobain's Greenhouse has the cleanliness of a sanitised Hello! magazine image, showing the kind of fame that, at least in part, drove Cobain to commit suicide there. This painting is also a good example of Dalwood's style of working- he composes believable tableauxes with images from luxury magazines, and then paints them on a large scale, where the sharp disjunctures and abrupt edges mean they retain their awkward collaged appearances- a comment on veracity of the magazine images that they echo, and the tendency of the media to exaggerate and make suppositions.

Kurt Cobain's Greenhouse- collage

Kurt Cobain's Greenhouse, Dalwood- 2000

I was inspired by Dalwood's work to look at how existing photographs compare to images from art history, visually, but also thematically and temporally. For example, this photograph of my grandparents' wedding bears a resemblance to Alfred Eisenstaedt's VJ day in Times Square.

VJ Day in Times Square, Eisenstaedt- 1945

But they are also linked in that they are both new beginnings. Eisenstaedt took his photo as celebrations of the end of the war took place, and the church which my grandparents are standing in front of was in the process of being rebuilt after it was destroyed by a bomb during the war.