for immediate release
presents
New Britannia: Reinventing British Iconography a series of paintings by Rachel Maggart Opening 12 October 2015 Specially commissioned for Roast Restaurant, New Britannia: Reinventing British Iconography is an exhibition of ten works by American artist Rachel Maggart. On display at Roast in Borough Market from 12th October 2015, the show brings together classical and contemporary icons in a series of painted collages, exploring the rich syncretism of ideas and images in Britain today. Viewers are invited to a dining experience coupling visual intrigue with the highest standard of British cuisine. The paintings of New Britannia depart from a digital collage: scraps of images collected, manipulated and interwoven so that the composite image points discreetly to a network of forces and assumptions at play underneath. This composition is then transferred to painting, crystallising it in a medium of hegemonic status, to subvert expectations and effectively monumentalise an absurd pastiche. Meaning emerges through new channels and associations made apparent to the viewer. In each work, Rachel cannibalises a range of signs and symbols across pop culture and art history – Francis Bacon, David Bowie, J.M.W. Turner, Tracey Emin – in a process mirroring the archival system of the World Wide Web. Drawing from styles of Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Pop, she observes and re-presents iconic exports of Britain so that they may be perceived outside of any ordinary context. Forms melting, disintegrating, eroding or peeling away poke fun at archetypical beauty and question status quo modes of image making, be they Internet memes or hyper-rational aesthetics. Rachel Maggart is a London-based artist and writer, who entered the fine arts through her background in classical piano, music history and theory. She received a B.A. in Music from NYU (2007), before earning an M.A. History of Art from Birkbeck College (2014), where she attended on a Gordon Square International Award. Rachel works in painting and photo editing software to represent iconic imagery. She is interested in mythmaking and mass culture, image movement and circulation. Rachel is an independent curator and sells art by Modern masters at Stern Pissarro Gallery in Mayfair. This is her first solo exhibition.