(click image for more details)Revelry and its Aftermath III, 2008
etching
60cm x 45cm
The Last Days of Disco, 2008
52cm x 43cm x 2.5cm
Duclos, 2008
40cm x 31cm x 2.5cm
In Grimm's fairytale Rapunzel the titular character extends her fair hair from her tower prison to allow access to her prince saviour. However, rumbled by her captor witch, one day the prince climbs the 'golden stair' to be confronted instead by the evil crone who has cut short Rapunzel's braided hair and cast her out into the wilderness. His expectations of beauty denied, the prince leaps from the tower to be blinded by the thorns below, never to see Rapunzel's beauty again.
Pio Abad's drawings, sculptures and installations feature skeins of twisted hair – often tangled and sited against luxuriant, heraldic-style geometric backgrounds – snaking together with pearls, ribbons and other opulent items of adornment. Like pompadour
wigs that have somehow detached themselves from their aristocratic hosts' heads and taken on a life of their own, these abject creatures seem to threaten to reek revenge on the decadent 'masters' of their creation, suffocating and consuming all in their path.
Employing 'the grotesque as a creative strategy' Abad holds a mirror up to the worst offenders of consumerist excess. He denies us our preconceived notions of 'beauty' and 'luxury', exposing them as decadent, delusional and manifestations of systems of control.
Paul Stone, 2008
find out more about this artist
find out more about Paul Stone
