Pleasure, leisure and the unspoken derangements of desire take the frame in this sun-drenched new series of paintings and prints by Kate Gottgens.

Unmoored from work-time and temporarily set free from the tyranny of schedules, sun-kissed pleasure seekers flaunt their flesh, flirting with the camera, wanting to be looked at, and hoping to seduce. The camera’s presence haunts these paintings. In one scenario, an Andy Warhol lookalike in black bathing trunks and sunglasses sprawls out awkwardly on a deck chair, wielding a small camera. In another, a clothed figure squats to look through a viewfinder on a low tripod at his friends, loosely lolling about in their swimsuits.

Gottgens works from an assembled archive of random photographs of strangers retrieved from vintage and junk shops, dismantling and reassembling these images in her mind. Recorded gestures and postures form the substratum of her paintings, fuelling her narrative constructions in which past and present collide. In several artworks, the figures strike poses as if expressly directing themselves towards a camera. In others, the composition suggests that the scene has been glimpsed by a voyeur, hiding among the palm trees, taking special interest in the physical intimacy of others. By extension, the viewer is that voyeur. Narratively and visually enticing, these paintings are a provocation to own the kink.

Voyeurism and photography have an entangled history, with technological progress in photographic image-making expanding the reach of images, voyeurism and surveillance. ‘Photography gratified lust from the beginning. When the French government prohibited the sale of pornographic daguerreotypes ten years after Daguerre’s process was made public, photographers making nude photographs tried to circumvent the law by calling them “academies” – studies for artists.’[1]

Taking her cue from photographic tropes like ‘the pin-up’ and other candid everyday snapshots, the artist brings a strange aura of ironic retrospection to familiar scenes of leisure and adult play. Not shying away from the use of corny poses and a candy palette, Gottgens conjures the concept of the illusionary lover with intimacy and wit, reflecting on themes of beauty, sexuality, and the male/female/fluid gaze. Under the exposing light of the sun, inner impulses are sublimated into a repertoire of bodily gestures and postures – splayed legs, naked breasts – that take things beyond the limits of poolside chitchat.

‘Illusion is the first of all pleasures,’ wrote Voltaire[2], alluding to the chimera at the heart of human craving and suffering. Evoking the intoxicating allure of the summer fling and the exhilarating nature of seasonal relationships, this series also hints at the madness that lurks beneath the surface of a long, hot afternoon. The louche and leisurely mood is underpinned by a sense of personal urgency – a hunger to transgress the limits of social conformity and fully experience your snatch of freedom before the chance of it fades away. In the reconfiguring heat of the moment, personalities melt into more primal modes of expression as flesh seizes the day. Inhibitions are lowered and spontaneity reigns supreme. Some faces are no more than featureless swooshes of paint, giving material substance to the blurring effects of desire.

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[1] Vicki Goldberg. ‘Voyeurism, exposed,’ artnet, http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/goldberg/exposed-voyerism-surveillance-and-the-camera8-25-10.asp.

[2] Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), La Pucelle d’Orleans (The Maid of Orleans: A Poem in XXI cantos), (1756 [1730]), Translated into English by W.H. Ireland.