Alice Smalice

"˜Through the meditative praxis of painting, I create wastelands of discombobulated symbolism. I believe I inaugurate the referential rubble of contemporary culture (created and informed by art history, fashion, film, religion and pop culture) into singular spaces; forcing seemingly unconnected symbols into a void, in which they are able to react to one another and co-exist without the fine boundaries that would usually separate them, and prevent such a collapse. Ultimately I am creating a purgatory in which, symbols both malevolent and benevolent, charged and biennial, claim the same precedence and are therefore stripped of meaning and glorified in the same instance. As in some of the images of Bosch, Dali and Dadd, there is an ever-present dichotomic tension that keeps the images looming on the edge of self-destruction, which I believe illustrates the fragility of meaning in a world of oversaturation. "˜

St Augustine's Catholic College '06

Goldsmiths, University of London '11
BA Art Practice