Fiona Rae

In this new body of work, Fiona Rae employs a battery of painterly marks and graphic signs that jostle for space on the fictive plane of painting. Rae revels in juxtaposing elements gleaned from a raid on art history's store cupboard: layering Abstract Expressionism, Tachism and Minimalism alongside contemporary global references from graphic design and popular culture.The mood is ambiguous - flowers, toys and cartoon characters initially suggest a sweet, almost cloying world, yet Rae's dark and brooding palette combined with virtuoso washes and veils of paint suggest dissolution and decay - all is not well in this candied, melting world. These new paintings reveal Rae's continued fascination with the graphic tropes of the Far East: a dragon's scales, exotic feathers and flowers are all rendered with the humorous insouciance of Hokusai crossed with Asterix.