The title of this show comes from a Twitter account that splices quotes from Kierkegaard with Kim Kadashian’s tweets. We have the agonies of personal choice set beside the smugness of total self absorption.The juxtapositions jangle and you can see why Natalie Dray is attracted to the mix.
Her work relishes a confusion between the organic and the inorganic. What look like pretty leaves turn out to be pewter imitations, dangling from thick and dangerously thorny stems, and ragged and spotted to boot. They are coloured with the cosmetic pink of artifice, or sometimes the brownish pink of fleshy bruises, and they have been ravaged by a host of unseen insects.. Our uneasiness deepens as we see the various packs of painkillers and condoms scattered about on the shelving and the floor.
Metal penetrates bodies and these seductive pewter leaves/skin become chilling under scrutiny. This work spells out the fact that our world is stuffed to bursting with simulations which nearly always prove sinister when looked at closely. It also functions unmistakeably as very classy art.
Natalie Dray ‘Kierkegaardashian’ is at Blain/Southern at 4 Hanover Square SW1S 1BP until 15 September.
