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Night Raids

Paul Insect- Poison exhibition

26.09.08

The first time I saw a print of the King was years ago when I first started to take notice of art. The print was a multi-coloured Andy Warhol piece, and that particular king was the one and only Elvis. Since then I’d never seen a single artist feature Elvis in their work, that was until one day I chanced across a print on an art forum from Paul Insect. This particular Elvis was lacking the enigmatic pose the Warhol print had, in-fact, it didn’t even have flesh!

Paul Insect’s talent is to see beyond the assumed views and rather than scratching the surface, he just rips it off. I’m sure he means to show us things for what they really are, or at least, how they are to him. Examples of this are rife throughout the recent Poison art show in London. Entering the former private shop in Kings cross, the first thing to notice are that the walls and ceiling are papered with images of his trademark plastic baby dolls heads. Mounted upon this backdrop are a series of framed prints of more heads with the forehead split wide open showing off eyes, circuit boards and mashed brains, they might be colourful and fun, but are also undoubtedly freaky.

In contrast, opposite the baby heads is a wall of ornate frames housing a series of fine art paintings of religious types on gold leaf style background. All of these paintings have a few things doctored, Bishops are clutching i-books or joints and some sporting clowns hair and mice noses, all effortlessly poking fun at the clergy while showing a more refined painting style and a lighter hearted outlook.

Playboys bunnies have had radical reworking too, there is one on display for every month of the year. The bunny ears are still there, but the pretty faces are stripped back to the bare bones. Although these bunnies are in skull form they aren’t devoid of expression. Some smiling, some angry, some blinged out with ruby encrusted teeth. The standout was the bunny with pink ears and matching pink braces clamped around the teeth. It would be obvious to assume that Insect was pointing at the cliché ‘Beauty is only skin deep‘ but to be honest, I think he just likes skulls with a bow tie and rabbit ears.

The main room of the gallery is where Insect gets to show off the main body of work. Centre stage is a glass table, held up by a full skeletal playboy bunny, eerily the feet have been transformed to high heels made solely of bone. The room is minimally furnished with a graff’d up old sofa and beat up TV to accompany the skeleton table. The walls have a more colourful blend of framed pieces of layered collage on wood and canvas. The standout piece however is a huge stencil, white on washed out black of a very Victorian looking angel, on her knees and true to “street art” style……..clutching a syringe.

The side walls in the main room are much more colourful mix of mediums. There are some very detailed sprayed pieces on wood, as well as equally striking, evolved pop-art styled canvases. Insect has a unique way of piling scores of shapes and colours in to a collage without them seeming too busy, even with Bootsy Collins style eye wear. These sprayed pieces might be out of sync with some of the other work on display, but serve to show Insect can’t be tagged in any one form of art, or certainly not in anyone one particular mindset. It’s clear Paul’s moods shift as often as his favoured medium, from sarcastic to desperate then playfully expressive, truly something for everyone.

As a solid member of Lazarides Galleries self styled Outsiders collective I’m sure Insect will be popping up soon in their galleries in Soho or even the gallery in Newcastle alongside the likes of Faile and Micallef. The next public outing for the group started on the 26th September in New York which is a full group show worth catching if you are in NYC, if you can’t make that keep your eyes open around the UK, freaky sci-fi dolls heads are popping up all over!

Philip Procter

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