Visual artist Lulu Pinkus’ latest exhibition, Transfiguration is likely to be as captivating for kids as adults. The works are, we’re told, a symbolic narrative of her dealings with a messy divorce, and a challenging life in the last few years. However, it’s done with imagery that might well be a dark fairytale; exciting the imagination, yet interrogating it in the same breath.
For the educated and mature, Pinkus’ work is bulging with religious and dream-like archetypal imagery that puts the mind to work searching for meaning and connections, like some sort of adult Where’s Wally.
For the unaffected imagination, the surreal landscapes reach so far into the distance that you can create stories about what’s happening in them. The gentle characters seem to float in the foreground, even the cacti that strangely resemble human figures, with their voluptuous body shapes; some holding bags or wearing shoes – but none with faces or fingers.
There’s a lot of shoes and Barbie dolls in these artworks; the girly girl in Lulu Pinkus is peeking out amongst the ethereal themes which dominate her work. The overall images are mysterious, but there’s definitely some sort of morphing from childhood to the enlightened creative spirit going on here. Ice Angel and Ark Angel in particular are prime examples, where guardian angel-like characters shield female youngsters. Curiously though, all of them seem to have the same earthy face and calming eyes.
The finished paintings seem like a portal straight from Pinkus’ mind to the spectator; take Zou Bisou Bisou for example, where a doll in oversized sexy red shoes gazes into the wind, with a winged bell flying overhead, and a vaguely eastern-style city nestled miles away behind her.
The acrylic paintings have a flatness to them, despite the remarkable depth of field in many of them, and the obviously painstaking shading by the artist to make her figures appear solid. But it’s no use looking at these works from a technical point of view; that’s not what they’re about.
The style actually suits the subject matter. The meshing of dream-like imagery with kitsch paraphernalia requires something different to the traditional bowl-of-fruit still life treatment.
And so here I reiterate how much these works would appeal to the child’s eye; an untainted mind wouldn’t linger on tiny corners of a near perfect, and frankly phantasmagorical picture just because the brushwork is a little wobbly. It doesn’t matter; what’s extraordinary is the clarity with which Pinkus gives us insight into her creative mind. She may not have the same training nor as steady a hand as Dali, but the two certainly must have a few neural pathways in common. The genius of surrealism has always been in its peerless transportation of the viewer to other realms; not so much the way it’s rendered. Pinkus has what it takes to do that.
With a background in performance and film, for many years Lulu Pinkus channelled her energy into those industries rather than visual art. But like any creative who dips their toes in multiple pools, this time she’s found solace in painting. This is her second show since that journey began.
The work has been described as ‘intensely personal’, and that’s exactly the feeling which was evoked in this reviewer at the opening show. Like her naked Barbie dolls, Lulu Pinkus has bared almost all in her new collection. Your adult self will be graced with some very serious subject matter; but be sure to let the child within have a frolic amongst it all too.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Lulu Pinkus – Transfiguration
Arthouse Gallery, Rushcutters Bay
6 – 23 February
