Conversation Piece

This artwork was made in response to the 18th C painting: Sir Willoughby Aston and his wife by Joseph Highmore. (see right & below). It can be described as a 'conversation piece'. Paintings like these depicted the aristocracy and middle classes and their families when their empire was in the ascendancy. Sure of their place in society and willing to show their wealth and their entitlement to it.  Self-belief is the theme of the painting both in the way it is painted and in the narrative contained within it.

The video (see below right) was filmed in an 18th C space (Rotunda) but uses polythene and movement opposed to the very still and solid aspect of the 18th C painting.

What we might have regarded as defined becomes indeterminate. 
Permanent becomes impermanent. 
What seems solid becomes unstable.

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