Coco Dávez_Partners in Time by MaddoxGallery

09 MARCH - 23 APRIL 2023 WESTBOURNE GROVE

PARTNERS IN TIME

Maddox Gallery presents ‘Partners in Time’, by the Spanish painter Coco Dávez, comprising pairs of iconic real-life or fictional couples – best friends, lovers, rivals and co-conspirators – the exhibition cleverly brings famous figures to life in the artist’s graphic, Pop Art style while never revealing their facial features.

Arriving hotly anticipated, the Partners in Time exhibition is the first time Dávez has depicted duos, rather than individuals, in her signature faceless style. Freddie Mercury is twinned with David Bowie; Andy Warhol with fellow artist Jean-Michel Basquiat; US President John F. Kennedy with his wife Jackie; and Vivienne Westwood with Malcolm McLaren, as well as cinema’s most-loved couple, Sandy and Danny from Grease.

Maeve Doyle, Artistic Director of Maddox Gallery, comments: “Coco’s Partners in Time flaunts the division between real and imaginary couples. The show covers a spectrum of relationship types from romantic to professional, familial, and artistic. Have these relationships been grounded in building each other up or tearing each other apart? This exhibition invites the viewer to play a game of guess who, questioning the role of traditional relationships and exploring the importance of certain people in our lives – who stimulates us and who completes us.”

Born in Madrid in 1989, Dávez took up painting aged 21. Then, as now, she cites Pablo Picasso – a master of deconstructing the human face – as her inspiration. In this latest exhibition of her work, Picasso appears for the first time alongside his close friend, the designer Coco Chanel, two creative giants who frequently inspired each other, creating a stimulating dialogue between the worlds of fashion and painting.

“I paired people who mean something to me personally, and who I associate together in my mind,” says Dávez. “With my choice of colours, I strive to find a mix that reveals a sense of the subject’s character. In the case of the duos, this combination of colours also reveals an affinity between the two members.”

Dávez engages with her celebrity subjects by finding the distinguishing features, such as hairstyles, clothing, and accessories, that are central to their personas and interpreting them in vivid harmonies of shape and colour. Ranked as one of the great 21st-century inheritors of the Pop Art tradition, the artist’s decision to omit faces is open to widespread interpretation. Some view it as celebratory, while others regard it as a commentary on modern society’s obsession with celebrity.

Dávez held her first solo exhibition in 2011, at Pickpocket Gallery in Lisbon. Two years later, she began to paint her first faceless pictures and has since gone on to collaborate with a series of prestigious international brands, including Netflix, Jean Paul Gaultier and Bombay Sapphire. In 2019, she was named in Forbes magazine’s prestigious ‘30 Under 30’ list of standout young creatives.

COCO DÁVEZ BIOGRAPHY

“Creativity doesn’t depend on your work’s visibility. Great collaborations help your work reach more people, but in my case the projects that have helped me advance are precisely my personal ones, with no brands behind. When the project is yours, you have the freedom to take it where you, and only you, want to”.

Born in Madrid in 1989, Coco Dávez began painting at the age of 21, in 2010. As a selftaught artist, she cites Pablo Picasso as her biggest inspiration, particularly his early Cubist masterpiece Demoiselles D’Avignon (1907). Almost instantly after she started releasing her work on social media - which remains one of her primary platforms as an artist to this day - she started gaining the attention of various galleries and publishers, who approached her for collaborations.

Her first group exhibitions took place in Santiago de Chile and at La Casa Encendida in Madrid, followed by her first solo presentation in Lisbon at Pickpocket gallery in 2011. Her most famous Faceless collection was born out of a period of crisis that followed her initial success, prompted by a downturn in publishing projects. It was during that difficult period that she began experimenting with acrylics on canvas, painting faceless portraits of well-known figures she admired including Patti Smith or Frida Kahlo. Her treatment of colour is both intuitive and driven by a sense of character associated with the person she is representing, as if conveying their personality onto her canvas through particular colour combinations. Her simple, geometric lines are both childlike and exude a sense of artistic confidence and self-aware style. Her portraits are a refreshing take on contemporary society’s obsession with the cult of celebrity, while also paying homage to the art historical canon. With Faceless released in 2013, Dávez re-entered the art world with a newfound force and has had a prolific output of projects ever since, including collaborations with prestigious international brands such as Chanel, Netflix, Jean Paul Gautier and Bombay Sapphire. For each of these editions, her unique treatment of colour and subject matter shines through with daring artistry and a style that is instantly recognizable.

Dávez’s Faceless portraits were exhibited at Maddox Gallery in 2019 as her first solo exhibition in the UK. Among the most imaginative and unique artists of our time, Dávez’s visual universe is a true trailblazer for the virtual age.