Pound of flesh (Melanie) Painting

Ken Wentworth is a contemporary Australian visual artist based in Melbourne, he uses existing cultural images and repositions them into a new framework, enabling an alternative perspective of meaning. Cultural imagery becomes a sign post that alludes to characteristics of contemporary society and personal reality, enabling us to be in on the joke, and to question and critique aspects of both our culture, and ourselves. Ken graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts - The University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in the year 2000. '...If we indeed are living in a time of the plague of fantasies, perhaps the best cure that artists can offer is to unleash the images, in order to see where they lead us, how they go before us. A certain tactical irresponsibility with images, what I... call "critical idolism" or "secular divination," might be just the right sort of homeopathic medicine for what plagues us.' Mitchell, W. J.T, What do pictures want? The lives and loves of images. (2005, University of Chicago Press)