In his latest solo exhibition at Cob Gallery, Tristan Pigott – along with the help of gallerist Rory Kirk-Duncan – proudly presents a selection of new paintings.
The exhibition is his first solo show off the back of the success of his inclusion in both the BP Portrait Award and Royal Academy Summer Exhibition this year.
Since graduating from Camberwell College of Arts in 2012, Pigott has honed in on his own unique brand of figurative painting. Playing around with the notion of how human ego is translated into image; the artist’s work falls somewhere in between realism and the surreal. His abstract compositions often address the difference between performance and reality. Never shy to visually critique the importance we place on image and perception, the artist’s latest paintings offer up a further exploration of these themes.
The title of the exhibition – ‘dead natural’ – is an ironic jab at the way in which sitters or models are often asked to pose. It also refers to the artist’s current preoccupation with the nature morte style of painting. This style is explored – and indeed mocked – through works such as ‘Lemon Peeler’ – a still life painting that features a lobster painted yellow, placed on a blue lemon tablecloth.
There will be ten brand new works comprising of both portraits and paintings from still life. Portraits such as ‘A Couple’ and ‘Green Dinner’ deal with the complex nature of human relationships and are laden with heavy symbolism that are suggestive of the artist’s own thoughts on these particular couples. Other portraits like ‘Contrary Mary’ and ‘Selfie as Lina Moy’ address the age old philosophical questions about how we interpret the self but within a contemporary context.