PHILIP EGLIN: HANDS OFF BERBATOV

摘要

Irreverence is a necessary emotion and Philip Eglin makes good use of it, his cheek contained by the beautiful construction of his forms. He makes large statements, though not all the work is large, and his double ability in unconventional form making and a fluent graphic sense requires him to engage with different types of work; all are handbuilt. He makes a very simple form, a cylindrical 'bucket', whose outer surface can be crammed with imagery and text referencing many things - there are six of these buckets in the current exhibition. They are strongly coloured, painterly and earthenware. The iconography includes headlines, celebrity scandal, footballers and Popes, tarts and stars, Jesus, Nelson, dramatic scenes in football or history; the mundane and the sublime crashed together. The surfaces are rich with graphic confusion including brush marks, print, relief, scribble, the odd trail of red glaze, cut crucifixes as peepholes to a nineteenth century nude on the inside wall. The football heroes are the most arresting and powerful images - Drogba, Ronaldo and Berbatov -followed by the Pope in awkward juxtapositions with prostitutes.