The Worm in the Bud

Handel Street Projects 2017

 

 

The paintings in The Worm in the Bud all depict a vase of flowers in an unspecified space with no direct references to the interiors that they are in.

 

These are large paintings that inhabit the domestic rooms of the gallery with an outrageous assertiveness, exaggerating the monstrous complexity of the plant’s structure. The details of each bunch of flowers are rendered with obsessive, unnatural clarity and the titles reflect on the emotional implications of this overreaching realism: The Explosive Child, This Thing of Darkness, Sexual Anarchy and The Worm in the Bud. These are all titles of books that suggest an implied threat to established order, without that threat being specified or understood.