Penny Slinger
b. 1947, United Kingdom
The provocative practice of London-born, LA-based artist Penny Slinger spans photography, collage, film and sculpture. Active from the late 1960s, Slinger emerged into a maelstrom of political protest, social change and sexual freedom. She graduated from the Chelsea School of Art in 1969 having developed a visual language she described as 'feminist surrealism', influenced by her study of European Surrealism, her friendship with Roland Penrose and association with Max Ernst. Slinger quickly began exploring and investigating the notion of the feminine subconscious and psyche, using her own body to examine the relationship between sexuality, mysticism and femininity.
The work of Penny Slinger has featured in numerous exhibitions, including most recently ‘House of the Sleeping Beauties’ at Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery, London, UK (2019); ‘Visible Women’, Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, UK (2018); ‘Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings’, Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, UK (2018); the major touring exhibition ‘Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s: Works from the Verbund Collection’ at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK (2016–2017) and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany (2015); ‘History Is Now: 7 Artists Take on Britain’, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2015); ‘Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism’, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2009); and ‘The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art’, Tate St. Ives, UK (2009).