Artist: Fischer Mustin

GRIMM presents a solo exhibition of new paintings by Fischer Mustin. This is his first solo exhibition with GRIMM and his largest exhibition to date.

In these new paintings, Mustin depicts young figures located within the absurdities and perversions of contemporary western life. These languid solitary figures are suspended in an atmosphere that is perverse as it is pensive, with a game of signs taking place across the surface which serve to do and undo meanings, creating a polarisation of painting’s conventions and signals.

Torsos are awkwardly contorted, as though possessed by something ulterior, while faces are consciously hidden or staring outwards at the viewer. Environments are peppered with the trappings and signifiers of bourgeois society – spilt bottles of Fiji water and designer handbags clutched by slender arms. The presence of fish and aquatic life within the environments locates them in an unsure state.

There is an ambiguity as to the intention behind the figures Mustin depicts in the works, conjuring a quiet sense of unease as well as alluding to the metaphysical presence of the artist as actor and conspirator. They offer an insight into a desperate dejected world of warped relationships between objects, subjects and their image.

Throughout Mustin’s work there is a dislocated approach to brushwork that weaves a thread between various moments in art history, borrowing from across different centuries. The effect across the canvas is one of discourse, alluding to a tension through the history of painting as a medium that captures and reflects.