This exhibition examined the gestural works of Joel Dickens, encapsulating a tension between the modern adult’s state of freedom and imprisonment, taking flight in a cage.
Children unleash scribble in a moment of uninhibited, spontaneous, emotional expression – subconscious, absent-minded and pure.
This is not that.
Here, childlike and spontaneous gestures are constricted by the neuroses of adulthood. The paint never reaches the boundary; staying within the lines. The ID is restricted by the ego, and passions are sacrificed to the day-to-day realities of life. Good intentions meet their limitations. A nervous breakdown that you’re not allowed to have.
The paintings are created by laying many layers of paint, before carefully removing the paint to create a calculated expression of hi-key emotional outburst.
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