Alice Lang, 'Pink Purikura Jaw', 2006
Digital image of wearable made from wet-look vinyl and wadding, 19 x 15cm
Alice Lang, 'Snow Drift (Detail)', 2007
Wet-look vinyl, wadding, rabbit fur, beads, ribbon, 15 x x17 x 26cm
Alice Lang, 'Ecto-parasitic Bonnet 3', 2006
Digital image of wearable made from wet-look vinyl and wadding, 30 x 40 cm
Alice Lang's soft sculptures evoke both the body and nature, through their associative and suggestive qualities. Unable to define the specific associations the works create within the boundaries of objects from life, they inhabit the unsettling domain of the unfamiliar. These unidentifiable shapes remain as nameless organic objects, inert and motionless, yet suggesting life and growth. The clusters of bulbous tumors which comprise the works are simultaneously reminiscent of human organs, fungi and sinister sub aquatic creatures. Their ability to transcend categorization between natural and human form, demonstrates the body's inherent connection to nature.
Lang uses materials such as wet-look vinyl and satin which imbue the pieces with an alluring tactility. Notions of femininity are explored through the relationships of attraction and repulsion. Her sculptures demonstrate the inspiration she finds in the work of Louise Bourgeois in the use of associative forms and materials, which endow the shapes with a sexually evocative quality.
In 'Pink Purikura Jaw', wet-look vinyl is suggestive of human flesh. The pink fabric stretches around swollen organic forms of various sizes. The shape of the piece, combined with Lang's positioning of the object along one side of the face, is reminiscent of Salvador Dali's surrealist 'Lobster Telephone' (1936). It both allures the viewer in its tactility, yet disgusts in its elusive organic associations. Amidst the wealth of responses generated by the work, 'Pink Purikura Jaw' induces horror, as the parasitic form engulfs and envelops the face of its wearer.
The small size of the structures encourages a feeling of intimacy towards them. By creating objects to be worn, Lang destroys the boundary between artwork and spectator. The unobtrusive scale of the work in relation to the human body encourages an unthreatening attraction, initiated through the use of material and soft forms. This invitation to intimacy is subsequently challenged as the underlying, troubling qualities of the pieces emerge.
To view her profile page on Saatchi Online click here.
Rachel Mulvaney
Rachel Mulvaney is currently completing an MA Honors degree in History of Art at the University of St. Andrews. She specializes in contemporary art criticism, with particular interest in the current concerns of female artists and feminist theory. She has worked at various commercial galleries in the South-West of England, as well as in the Press Department at the Saatchi Gallery from June to September 2009.
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