Eileen Agar
Eileen Agar (1899-1991) was a Surrealist photographer, painter and maker of curious objects. Much of her artistic production centred around Swanage, the Dorset seaside town. Agar perceived it to be a particularly surreal place, filled with intriguing shapes and ancient jurassic cliffs. She described the rocks and pebbles found on the Swanage beaches as “enormous prehistoric monsters sleeping on the turf above the sea.”
Agar incorporated found objects in her work. Strange and curious seaside objects, such as sea glass or shells, were incorporated into her work. She also utilised photography to disrupt and disarm viewers, by experimenting with tricks of the eye and visual illusions.
The fantastic nature of Agar’s work can be seen in her Ceremonial Hat for eating Bouillabaisse. It was a cork basket painted blue, covered in fishnet and marine objects such as starfish and a lobster’s tail. It was a random assemblage of found objects elevated to the status of high fashion, an irony which Agar enjoyed. You can watch her wearing the hat here.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (1977-present) is a contemporary painter who largely depicts portraits of imaginary subjects. She works at a large scale in oil paint. Her practice is defined by a dark palette and muted colours, which grant her subjects a historic and enduring quality. History, she says, is a significant inspiration. She is interested in “the power that painting can wield across time.”
Her figures are characterised by both individuality and anonymity. They are often depicted wearing plain, dark clothes and without shoes. Yiadom-Boakye’s inspiration stems, like Agar, from found objects. She also uses memories, literature, images and observations around colour and gesture to compose her work. You can follow her work here.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, A Passion Like No Other, 2012 (Eljay via Flikr)
Cecile Walton
Cecile Watson (1891-1956) was a Scottish illustrator, painter and printmaker. She was an early protagonist of the Symbolist movement, which reacted against overt realism and naturalism in painting. Walton’s works move between depicting ordinary, or even mundane, moments of everyday life, to illustrating the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Her oeuvre is expansive and her illustrations rich in detail.
Her 1920 work Romanceparodies the famous work by Edouard Manet. She paints herself in a similar position to Manet’s sex worker subject, but she has just given birth to her son Edward. The Symbolist negation of realism is seen here in the distance Walton has created between the subjects themselves. It is a removed and somewhat clinical scene which suggests a strained relationship with her children.
Enam Gbewonyo
Enam Gbewonyo (1980-present) is a sculptor, performance artist and founder of the Black British Female Artist Collective. After a period spent as a knitwear designer, Gbewonyo now utilises materials such as wool and women’s tights to create art focussed on issues of womanhood and identity. The importance she places on craft stems from her ancestral home in Ghana, where weaving is a crucial part of the tribe Ewe’s storytelling, community and ceremony.
Gbyewony’s use of women’s tights is a recurring theme in her work. She stretches the material across canvases, over photographs and across wooden frames. It creates a sense of unease, with the tears and rips often communicating troubled histories of racism and sexism. You can follow Gbewonyo's work here.
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