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Yanomamita    75 cm x 85 cm    monotype/oil     2013 ‘Baroque-co-co’ or ‘Tribes and Tropes for Different Folks’ Obviously referencing the media and the cult of celebrity these mono-print paintings simultaneously smirk and nod to feminist discourse more nebulous now than ever before. Glamour becomes kitsch, marred by tribal markings and subtle piercings. Where once the identifying ‘sign or stain’ indicated a particular tribe and the sacred/ritual aspects accompanying a woman from puberty to adulthood, it now blurs the tide line between itself and popular culture, fashion, art, becoming the norm.  But perhaps the meaning is deeper, more personally indulgent or symbolic. The notion of masquerade arrogantly gestures through the marks of ink and oil paint, ignoring gender -  always ready to participate. The ‘actress’ is transformed from Amazonian sprite into a panther cloaked in invisibility, her ‘affectation’ equally denoting and extinguishing the subtle, banal signified: be it sophistication, rebellion, vice or even “magic”. All images and text © copyright Julia Colmenares.

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Denouement    75 cm x 85 cm   monotype/oil    2013

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Jolie Bouche    75 cm x 85 cm   monotype/oil   2013

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Kitty Fume en Bleu     oil on paper    20cm x 20cm All images and text © copyright Julia Colmenares.

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Erendira   27 cm x 27 cm  monotype/oil on paper

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Fume   27 cm x 27 cm   monotype/oil on paper

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Kitty Smoke    27 cm x 27 cm   monotype/oil on paper

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Dame aux Camelias   64 cm x 70 cm    oil/monotype   2012

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Ladybird   64 cm x 70 cm    oil/monotype   2012

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Mark-up                 oil/monotype                              75cm x 85 cm       2013

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Purfleet Pleasure Gardens   64 cm x 70 cm   oil/monotype   2012 Contrary to my work in colour, which follows a more playful ilk, my interest in landscape edges towards the personal, actual, observed and indeed, experienced sensation. Purfleet Pleasure Gardens hints at a darker, melancholic state, expressed through the deep blacks of the monoprint. As a starting point, faced with a cold steel plate completely blanketed in velvety noir ink, I work reductively, wiping away to uncover and reveal an image that emerges as much from my unconscious as from the source of inspiration. The larger the plate the more physical the act becomes, touching on the indulgent gestures of Abstract Expressionism and the Surrealist techniques of chance and automatic drawing, where skill battles the possibility of complete abandon.

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Femme Chatte   detail    2012 All images and text © copyright Julia Colmenares.