Francis Upritchard
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Work from her oeuvre.
“Francis Upritchard’s psychedelically coloured human figures ‘live’ on islands of ornate furniture. There is a festival feeling to their gatherings, emphasised by Upritchard’s acid-bright colours, hand-woven blankets and tie-dyed silks. Upritchard has said ‘all the things that hippies hoped would happen, or felt might happen, didn’t.’ In one sense her exhibition is about the failure of the 1960s and 70s counter-culture that is still celebrated at festivals – and its gaudy, individualistic “alternative” aftermath.
Originally from New Zealand and now living in London, Upritchard makes figures that appear archaic, yet they also seem to be devotees of contemporary cults, marooned in an alternative universe, ineptly groping after spirituality. We are left with artefacts as clues to meaning.” –Nottingham Contemporary