Decorum & Dissent
Decorum & Dissent is an exhibition that sets out to disrupt decorative conventions and displace their status quo. Through visual anarchy the work seeks to playfully explore the frivolous fiction of rococo & baroque within the narratives of decorum and dissent.
The origins of the ornamental lie within the desire to absorb nature into interiors, to create opulence and decadence. In palaces and stately homes these became symbols of wealth and power, often gained through exploitation of others. The popularity of the ornate then transcended into a common currency for the middle classes to exhibit the status of taste and privilege.
In another twist and turn, the decorative is re-appropriated to create the 'camp' of Queer identities. Flamboyance becomes a symbol of rebellion and dissent against the heterogeneous norm, and opulence is liberated to celebrate 'otherness'.
Within this multifaceted arena of meanings, the work in this exhibition Ode to Joy, Embellish and Troubled Horizons depict the 'decorative', undergoing a range of mutations that shift in form and context.
The viewer is invited to ponder the contrasts of random painterly 'terrains' against the 'ordered', elaborate motif. In a realm of contradictions and abandon, the work offers a portal of escapism.
COVID Chronicles is a series that is sombre and dark. Each artwork represents the twelve weeks of the first lockdown in 2020. The virus itself becomes the decorative motif that mutates in its journey across a series of patterned 'virtual' surfaces.
Decorum & Dissent is a body of work completed over a period of two years that encompassed the momentous and cataclysmic events of Brexit and the Pandemic. The images document an alchemy, each series physically connected to the other, bearing witness to a timeline of dislocation and bewilderment.
Veronica Slater 2021
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Ode to Joy
Acrylic on canvas
370cm x 200cm
Troubled Horizons
Inks and mixed media on paper
individually at 55cm x 20cm
COVID Chronicles
Mixed media on paper
180cm x 210cm
Embellish
Mixed media on paper
individually varied at approx. 12cm x 15cm
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