The emergence of female artist’s in 2017 gives an opportunity to find discourse and insight into our contemporary culture, integration, position and sense of experience in living and lifestyle in today’s world. Nadine Talalla’s show, ‘Haunted Beauty’ at Dissenters Gallery, Kensal Green, runs from 27 January – 5 February.
The presence of her oil paintings overwhelm in their ability to share dramatic moments of engagement; in romance, pain, beauty, colour, experience and nostalgia. The work communicates forth with an overbearing experience of ‘shadowland’ that often haunts with flashback moments of history that may have been literally buried, or swept aside but still found in Dissenters Cemetery through the persons ‘resting in peace’ and here now at Dissenters Gallery. Talalla brings life to the ‘dead’ and abject feelings of womankind, in transgender politics, hidden romance, hidden identity, the experience of sacrifice in finding presence in the world and the pains encountered in the journey of becoming.
Talalla’s show Haunted Beauty shines a light on the pain of becoming, as a woman in one’s profession
Talalla’s show Haunted Beauty shines a light on the pain of becoming, as a woman in one’s profession. A pathway of which, one would expect to encounter clarity and support, yet Talalla exposes many interfering elements in her paintings; through symbolism, myth, disguise, loss, romance and shame. We become aware through Talalla that the history of which she finds consultation; brings awareness to the hurdles experienced in the process of living as a female artist in London in today’s world.
A ‘dissenter’ is said to be a person that objects or rejects, due to freethinking or is recusant to authority. Dissenters Gallery 1834 and Chapel is positioned in the Kensal Green Cemetery, 391 Ladbroke Grove in which there is also an Anglican Chapel and a Dissenters Chapel. The Cemetery was inspired by Paris’s Pere Lachaise Cemetery in 1825, the Kensal Green Cemetery has a mainly Gothic style but the Grecian style was also enjoyed. Here we find space for thought in the art of rhetoric, so as to question the process of emergence and celebrate the talents of a highly articulate hand, beyond the shadow of a doubt; so as to celebrate Talalla’s sharing of her insightful and neo-romantic work.
‘Haunted Beauty’ at Dissenters Gallery, 391 Ladbroke Grove, Kensal Green 27 January- 5 February by Nadine Talalla curated by Vicky Caplin
Words: by Amanda McGregor Image: Nadine Talalla Scarlet Lady 2016