Tala Madani - Shaping the Surface: Online Auction London Wednesday, May 13, 2020 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Lombard-Freid Projects, New York
    Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2010

  • Catalogue Essay

    ‘I’m interested in a kind of figuration that’s not about precision but about trying to catch the ideas of your brain.’ - Tala Madani

    Executed in 2010, Tala Madani’s Imprint II subsumes us into the artist’s surreal painterly world. Created in the year preceding her seminal show at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, in the present work the viewer encounters the feet of four figures lying down, half hidden by a white covering daubed with illegible text-like black shapes, the first forming the letter ‘T’. With colourful stripes spanning the length of the composition, the figures’ socks mirror the colourful background artist of yellow, red, purple and turquoise, imbuing the work with vitality and vibrancy. Provoking a humorous response with her uncanny imagery, Madani toys with infantilizing her protagonists, playing with our associations with comedy, societal norms and shame. The importance of her progressive oeuvre has been further cemented in the recently acclaimed exhibition, Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium hosted at Whitechapel Gallery, London.

    Through her figurative application of oil, Madani renders her figures in the style of a caricature, often suggesting a background narrative or story. Incorporating visual references from cinema and pop culture, her style is made visceral in through the impact of political cartoons and historical cartoonists such as William Hogarth and Honoré Daumier. Madani’s treatment of violence, shame and sexuality continues a painterly dialogue with the psychological canvasses of Philip Guston and the lewd sexual content of Paul McCarthy’s sculpture and photography. Participating alongside leading contemporary artists at the Whitney Biennal in 2017, Madani’s body of work creates a unique visual space where desires are unfettered, and restrictions are relinquished.

7

Imprint Version II

signed and dated 'Tala Madani 2010' on the reverse
oil on panel
39.9 x 50.7 cm (15 3/4 x 19 7/8 in.)
Executed in 2010.

Estimate
£3,000 - 5,000 

Sold for £9,375

Contact Specialist

Charlotte Gibbs

Head of Sale, London

+44 20 7901 7993

cgibbs@phillips.com

Shaping the Surface: Online Auction

Online Auction 13 - 21 May 2020