The Right Kind of Man
Liquid Gold Studios, 68 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4AR
1st June – 6th June 2023
Private view: 1st June 2023, 6pm – late
Online platform Art School is pleased to present The Right Kind of Man, their first in-person exhibition. Showcasing new works by David Horgan and Amy Wiggin, the exhibition explores the notion of identity through their colourful portraits and creates a space for further dialogue around defined gender roles. The location of the exhibition in a shop window on the busy Southampton Row will continue the conversation into the street, in line with Art School’s ambition to make art accessible to everyone.
Taking the theme of the female experience as the centre of her practice, Amy Wiggin’s uses fine art printmaking techniques to question sexuality and gender boundaries, finding new ways to imagine the masculine and the feminine. She seeks to make room for collaborative discourse on these subjects, and so when asked during a past Q&A if she would ever exhibit with a male artist, Wiggin’s response was: “Of course, but only if he was the right kind of man”.
Enter David Horgan. The self-taught artist has established himself with a unique visual style that, like Wiggin, is not concerned with creating accurate portraits, but rather in capturing a feeling built from loose composites of personality traits and iconographic tendencies. Both artists work from imagination and memory, often basing their figures on people they have met, passed in the street, or who have visited them in dreams. They depict male, female, and non-binary figures who are outwardly presenting themselves in the artworks. They become paradigmatic examples of who the artists want them to be, who they want the world to be filled with. In other words, the right kind of people.
It is important to show Horgan and Wiggin together and recognise their similarities when the artistic sphere still frequently separates male and female artists, grouping or labelling them and their work by gender. Both work in fast paced and seldom planned manners, intuitively using colour and texture to create eye-catching compositions. Their works are often embellished with symbols and texts taken from recently read material or overheard conversations to enhance the subjects’ stories. These humorous additions bring both artists’ work to the same joyous conclusion.
