Private View: 23rd January 2018, 6 – 9pm
Exhibition: 24th January – 18th February 2018
Gazelli Art House is pleased to announce the inaugural unveiling of Benefit Supervisor Sleeping, a new large-scale video sculpture by Charlotte Colbert. The piece will be exhibited at Unit 9, a platform for artists focusing on installation, video, performance and conceptual works with a distinctive voice. The work is from Colbert’s series of anthropomorphic video sculptures which explore contemporary approaches to portraiture through moving image.
“I was interested in capturing the surreal intimacy of being with someone. The tiny details of silent communication”, Colbert comments.
The subject of this portrait is Sue Tilley aka “Big Sue”, the Benefits Supervisor launched into the public realm through a seminal series of paintings by Lucian Freud. Colbert’s work stages Sue Tilley within the original studio where Lucian Freud first painted her, creating a temporal vortex.
Examining Freud’s iconic series and exploring the mystery of its subject, Colbert uses 3D technology to zoom in on discrete observations of Sue Tilley. Slowing down footage and stretching the encounter between artist and subject, Colbert’s work uses technology to extend the gaze. Through the process, the object became the subject:
“I like the idea of turning the tables. Subverting the male gaze. Sue is now looking at us.”
Shot entirely in black and white and without sound, the work plays with the notion that technology is – by default – continually dated. This meditative work serves as a momentum mori that hopes to encourage observation, recognition and self-reflection within the viewer.
