Maya Hewitt - The Janitors And Their Sheltered Province
19 Jan - 4 Mar 2006
Maya Hewitt - 'The Janitors and Their Sheltered Province' (tree detail) - 2006
BISCHOFF/WEISS is delighted to present a major new body of work by British artist Maya Hewitt.
Like a segment cut from a storybook, the gallery appears transformed into an unknown, secluded territory. As the work, painted on panels unfolds, so it eclipses the walls of the gallery. The encircling terrain transports the viewer to an inviting yet hostile environment. Although firmly fixed in the reality of a natural world, a distinctive array of bizarre and personified landforms make up the environment, acting as both the inhabitants and the backdrop. Large mountains with cave-like mouths spew out teeth, carpeting the land and allowing intrinsic narratives to transpire. The part-humanoid forms and lurking impassive figures that inhabit the land appear cloaked in perverse costumes.
Where areas are built up and collage overlay the boards, the flat perspective of the landscape becomes staggered and the scene materializes to resemble a life-size version of a children's pop-up book. The artist surfaces frequently from her inner exploration to recover these beings from her subconscious. The vast expanse of self-examination is depicted in the covert environment, loaded with potent symbolism and recurring iconography. Derived from a slowly evolved, personal visual language, these signs and figures plot a course through an existential land.
Maya's work encompasses ideas of escapism and introverted adventure, where reality and fragments of her experiences are reinterpreted to create visions of an illusionary world. Characters displaced from their original context of past memories are 'puppeteered' into new scenes, where their identities and roles metamorphose and evolve through the process of each creation.
Like a segment cut from a storybook, the gallery appears transformed into an unknown, secluded territory. As the work, painted on panels unfolds, so it eclipses the walls of the gallery. The encircling terrain transports the viewer to an inviting yet hostile environment. Although firmly fixed in the reality of a natural world, a distinctive array of bizarre and personified landforms make up the environment, acting as both the inhabitants and the backdrop. Large mountains with cave-like mouths spew out teeth, carpeting the land and allowing intrinsic narratives to transpire. The part-humanoid forms and lurking impassive figures that inhabit the land appear cloaked in perverse costumes.
Where areas are built up and collage overlay the boards, the flat perspective of the landscape becomes staggered and the scene materializes to resemble a life-size version of a children's pop-up book. The artist surfaces frequently from her inner exploration to recover these beings from her subconscious. The vast expanse of self-examination is depicted in the covert environment, loaded with potent symbolism and recurring iconography. Derived from a slowly evolved, personal visual language, these signs and figures plot a course through an existential land.
Maya's work encompasses ideas of escapism and introverted adventure, where reality and fragments of her experiences are reinterpreted to create visions of an illusionary world. Characters displaced from their original context of past memories are 'puppeteered' into new scenes, where their identities and roles metamorphose and evolve through the process of each creation.