Pillow talk
March 29 – April 29, 2012
Opening: Thursday, March 29, 6–9 p.m.
PENTIMENTO FINE ART GALLERY
1164 Queen Street East
Toronto, ON, M4M 1L4
T: 416.406.6772
E: rockinrolland@sympatico.ca
Hours: Wed–Sun 12–6 p.m.
Jane Duncan is a photorealist painter with a focus on the theatrical, weaving a sense of fiction and fantasy into her images. Where other photorealists focus on detail and documenting the real world, Duncan focuses on luminosity and invention.
Social constructs of perfection are central to Jane Duncan’s series, entitled Trophy Lovers. Through the manipulation of golden trophy figurines into highly fabricated picturesque visions of idealized love, Duncan illuminates issues associated with the modern relationship, the tendency towards feelings of entitlement to perfection and the inevitable repercussions of empty, fleeting infatuation.
Throughout the series, the viewer is presented with dreamlike physical embodiments of ‘ultimate beauty’ and ‘good breeding.’ But what is perfection, and how can it be represented by a cheap, plastic, shiny trophy? In Duncan’s paintings, figures not composed not of the expected golden hues but rather by tiny patches of light made up of a multitude of colours which are dictated by the surrounding world. Arguably a correlation could be drawn between this method of observing colour and the way in which we view the concept of a trophy. Is it not true that the criteria for perfection, the winner, or the best is simply dictated by the surrounding world?
Despite its undeniable undercurrent of cynicism and sarcasm, the series aims to expose our natural human idiocy to believe in standards of perfection. Each Trophy Lover image is crafted with a comic jab at the plastic, rigid, superficiality of these perfect characters. Dissatisfaction inevitably arises in any situation when perfection is the expectation. Ideally these images will provoke in the viewer a reassessment of values, a readiness to overlook or accept the flaws in others and a renewal of appreciation for the beauty that is already present in our lives