Jim Coverley, 'Sweetheart', detail, 2007
Pillowcase and nails
Jim Coverley makes extraordinary works out of pillowcases and nails, which, like the work of a careful surgeon, are transformed with stitches, cuts and folds into sculptures which have both an emotional and symbolic resonance. The body is central to Coverley's art as he abstracts manages to extract the essence of pain or emotional states of being, and recreate them in troubling, three-dimensional forms.
For his first show in Paris he has created four sculptures specially shaped for the gallery space. Coverley's work initially looks extremely delicate and decorative but on closer inspection it becomes increasingly disturbing, deliberately putting the viewer in an uncomfortable position. In previous works he has rendered a child's pillowcase the site of trauma and nightmares by modifying it with strange, disconcerting forms. For this show in Paris, Coverley has chosen to hang the sculptures directly onto the walls using nails, pinning the works as if the artist were performing some kind of 'rudimentary surgery' (Coverley's own words). These works play on the dualities between pleasure and pain, attraction and repulsion, the nails themselves resembling on the one hand sugar candies and on the other, masturbation accessories.
Jim Coverley, who studied Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Royal Academy in London, is registered on Saatchi Online - click here to find out more about his work.
Jim Coverley: Dirty Pretty Things
Until 8 March
Schirman and de Beauce
5 rue Gauget
Paris
T: +33 1 40 47 67 29
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