‘SMUT’ by Jamie Fitzpatrick and Lindsey Mendick at VITRINE, Basel

A two-person exhibition of emerging British artists Jamie Fitzpatrick and Lindsey Mendick, whose practices explore a shared interest in gender, high and low cultural histories, and the relevance of the figure in image-making.

’SMUT’ brings together a collection of works produced concurrently in 2018 by the artists (in some cases in collaboration) in response to a shared interest in The Wallace Collection and its French 18th-century paintings, romantic fragonards, and porcelain figurines. Mendick describes a trip to the Wallace Collection and the artists bonding “over the grandeur and splendour of both the collection and decor. Gold guilded frames bled into grand paintings of feasting, dancing and amore. Rich brocade flooded the walls, glittering chandeliers dwarfed and aroused us. It dripped in excess and reeked of opulence. It was resolutely us.” These exuberant themes seep from the characters depicted in each artists’ new work, created in a variety of material combinations. Fitzpatrick working primarily with foam and coloured wax; whilst Mendick combines ceramic, painted wood, and fabric.

Fitzpatrick’s wax sculptures depict dancing male figures blown up from their porcelain figurine scale, with their female partners removed and their features and masculinity exaggerated. Each sculpture sits on a base with wheels to allow movement and a choreography in the space, and their clothes are encrusted in romantic floral decoration. As with much of his work, this new series of sculptures are influenced by ideas on cultural conditioning and sexual suppression, created from some transgressive act.

Fitzpatrick’s new silent video work uses his sculptures and the painted backdrop in a studio set-build for filming ‘The Transformative Stag Do’. As performer, the artist presents himself as the ‘Stag’, soon to be married but first subjected to a torturous and absurd ritual of masculinity.

Lindsey Mendick’s new works are gluttonous and porous, exposing lubricious lustre to the spectator. Inspired by William Morris “nothing which is made by man will be ugly, but will have its due form, and its due ornament, and will tell the tale of its making and the tale of its use”, she uses clay’s tactile nature to portray personal narratives. These new works depict party foods and celebrate the spectacle of femininity and feasting, whilst concurrently exploring the private shame associated to female gluttony.

Her sculpture ‘The Spectre at the Feast’ is framed by a backdrop painting, painted-in-situ on a double bed sheet, depicting the background of Fragonard’s ’The Swing’. This work is from a series of paintings focused on Mendick’s personal attempts as a female artist to employ the efflorescent language of classic male romantic painting.

The artists have collaboratively created kissing sculptures, which are inspired by the ‘amour sculptures’ at the Wallace Collection. These small works immortalise tender moments between lovers in a medium that desires to be manipulated by the hand. They are enshrouded by collaborative window paintings.

Together these works in varied materials and media are immersed in their elements into one hedonistic installation. The artists assume their respective masculine and feminine roles and through their work subvert the limitations of gender. The viewer becomes voyeuristic onlooker.