Machiko Edmondson’s Unattainable Desire
In her first virtual solo exhibition taking place at Robert Berry Gallery from June 26th through July 26th, 2020, London-based artist Machiko Edmondson has once again created an expansive look into the beauty and consumer cultures we currently live in. Just imagine, you can have a larger than life, never-aging fashion model being ever present on your living room wall for decades to come.
For her new body of work, Edmondson has painted new hyperrealistic faces through a rigorous studio practice and a renewed interest in offering the viewer some narrative into the lives of these stylized portraits. The artist has combined a subtle mixture of images to create these new portraits, while also using some actual figures for the first time in years.
For the untrained eye, Edmondson’s works appear to be larger than life photographs of women with the type of ideal beauty that one would see in all the beauty magazines targeted to young woman to promote style and luxury through the acquisition of consumer goods: clothing, makeup, hair products and jewelry. When in fact, the artist is actually promoting a disdain for the entire industry. The viewer who takes the time to get up close to the paintings will discover the immense amount of brushwork, blending, and laborious effort that went into making these paintings become something much more.
The artist states, “the works become paintings of unattainable desire,” and it is this bluff that is at the heart of the exhibition. In the era of identity becoming dominant, Edmondson strips these figures of what makes each women an individual, and ironically furthers the notion of unobtainable beauty. These idealized women have a level of beauty that is simply not possible in a reality without significant photo editing and … Click here to read more