Christina Zimpel: Troupe

5 Sep-12 Oct 2024

PV 5 Sep 2024, 6-8pm

Overview

Zimpel's London debut solo-exhibition, Troupe, refers to a group of amateurs or community theatre players. "The stage is a simplistic metaphor for life," writes Zimpel, where the private moments of doubt, anxiety or confidence are of particular interest to the painter. But implied in the definition of 'troupe' is also the notion of movement, of traveling, which is ironic given that Zimpel has chosen the precise moment of rest or pause wherein these performers are between phases, off-stage, awaiting curtain call. For Zimpel, the laden moments are those quiet moments happening "off-screen." 
 
There is a patience and fermentation necessary for all creatives (actors, painters, writers alike) where so much of the creative impulse is about regeneration: rest or rumination, where ideas percolate. The artist needs quiet in order to stoke the muse's fire. But these moments of stillness are dual-edged. In fact, the etymology of the verb "patience" comes from Latin patientia - meaning, literally, to suffer. And much of Zimpel's work evokes similarities to Jan Matejko's (uber)famous Stańcyzk, a 1480 painting that depicts Poland's most renowned court-jester in a moment of solipsistic quietude - an image tinged with profound tragedy and sadness, and in some respects, Zimpel's figures carry this tradition where the performative masks of tragedy and comedy can seem interchangeable: often one and the same.  
 
This portrayal comes across, through reticent poses and vibrant colour combinations, a disquieting, enervating, but always compelling portrayal. Through Zimpel's approach, the visitor is often a voyeur, wherein her works assume hover or embellish or saturate in these ulterior moments, where what Zimpel delineates with her brush or her striking, bold colour palette is as crucial to the image as what she chooses to omit, sublimate, or suggest. Faces, bodies, or even the occasional still life are brought to life with a confident - and confidently reductive - approach. 
 
Somehow these large planes of colour seem charged with emotion and an unbridled desire to break the rules of figurative painting. She lists Matisse and Christina Ramberg as sources of inspirations. So too does she credit some of this to her youth in Australia in the '70s, as well as the folkloric teachings of her Hungarian mother, both of which find their way into the soul of these paintings. "I am [aways] digging into other eras," Zimpel states, "from Ancient Rome and Greece, 50’s pinups and imagery from my own life... This kind of women [...] is always a modern woman." These are modern archetypes. "I exaggerate, reduce and modernize archetypes." Alluding to punk, Belle Epoque, and Romanesque sources of inspiration. "With attention to body language I’m representing dignity, awkwardness, and humor." 
 
Included herein are a series of coloured stools in which we also invite guests to sit, be patient, and enjoy the show. 

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