Promising gateways into hidden dimensions, Graceland London debuts her first solo exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery on Bond Street.
Drawing on her extensive knowledge of art history and its flirtation with symbolism, Graceland London’s ultra-contemporary work delicately depicts aspects of the dark feminine, decadence and vice. With a nod towards the compositions of Old Master paintings, she adds her characteristic flair for macabre modern storytelling.
Through playful candy hues and an aesthetic that takes inspiration from animation, her Spotlight On The Shadows series captures sinister side-stories while exploring central themes of consumerism and mental health. Her bright use of colour and treatment of form are associated with a child-like optimism, but the lurid subject matter and Tim Burton-esque style evoke a cynical tone.
“My artistic approach is a blend of tradition and innovation. I utilise the flat acrylic technique but incorporate a single use of traditional oil paint within each composition. This juxtaposition allows me to marry the vibrancy and immediacy of acrylics with the richness of oils. It’s a deliberate choice to do my work with a sense of depth and texture that creates visual interest. Integrating these two mediums, I want to create a dynamic visual experience that speaks to the intersection of tradition and modernity in art, emphasising the balance of light and dark required for life to be meaningful… Artists uniquely mirror their times, and in my work I want to illuminate how, from birth, society shapes our reality.” – Graceland London
As the name suggests, Graceland London is a British artist from London. She developed a passion for drawing and painting from a young age. Pursuing a BA in Fine Art and History of Art at Hampstead Fine Arts, she became enamoured with Italian Renaissance and 15th century Flemish paintings, with the impact of these influences remaining evident throughout her life and career so far.
She eventually went on to study 3D Digital Design and Animation at Greenwich University, further developing many of the signature figures and recurring motifs that now characterise her work. This includes a central persona affectionately known as the ‘squeegee;’ One of the many unkempt and melancholic figures representing elements of the ‘ego’ or the ‘shadow’ acting out in self-destructive ways.
Graceland’s compositional approach, filling the picture plane with diverse elements, mirrors the techniques of figures such as Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516), albeit with an Americana twist. Created to be explored and dissected, the stimulating worlds she highlights are furnished with a vast array of memorabilia, characters and phrases that rework inspiration from old masters such as Jan van Eyck and Luca Signorelli, whose pieces are a treasure trove of truth and timeless thought. Ironically, a consistent theme throughout her oeuvre is a scepticism towards contemporary culture.
Featured across her paintings are references to the current social and economic climate; They include Gucci logos, Donald Trump rubber ducks and a healthy dose of QAnon. The fried eggs are a particularly poignant expression of her purgatorial perspective: whole eggs have been represented throughout the history of art as a symbol of optimism and new life; Graceland inverts this tradition, stating that “when you come into this world, you are already doomed… because of how many things are wrong with this life.”
Graceland London has exhibited in many prestigious galleries and art fairs, both in the UK and internationally – such as Art Basel Miami and Switzerland. Now extending her tendrils into Web3, she is registered with SuperRare and has a range of Lady Lileth NFT’s. In her own words, her pieces are “an iron fist within a velvet glove… Operating on the basis that the more you look, the better you can see. My artwork could be seen as contemporary, but my main focus is to create art that merges societal lines – it fits into contemporary, pop, traditional and illustrative art. It shouldn’t be constrained to any singular category.”
“I also have a lot of knowledge about the history and mystery of philosophy, religion, and alchemy. I am fascinated with the idea of how human-kind came up with all these ideologies that still shape our thinking, so I try to use these same strategies in my work – to portray stories and vices that aren’t necessarily openly spoken about in day-to-day life… Most of my work is based around the effects of this on human consumption.” – Graceland London
Her pastimes and research processes involve activities such as staying up until 5 am looking at death row inmates and the reasons behind their execution, explaining “I encourage my mind to actively pursue greater knowledge about the unknown, whether that is found in studying the psychology of criminals, or ideas of angels and demons… I make an effort to learn something new and interesting everyday, which in turn inspires both my art and my own thought processes.”
The art world is often seen as inaccessible to those that don’t know much about art, and many young artists have difficulty breaking into such a competitive industry themselves. However in contrast to the cynical outlook of her own work, as a young artist Graceland’s world is brimming with potential, and her playful pieces with their open-ended narratives have already found resonance amongst a large number of people, in many different ways.
