May Hands
May Hands recontextualizes product packaging–from luxury fashion brands such as Gucci and Chanel to mass distributed fruit labels to colored cellophane–in her sculptural paintings, often mixing the discardables within the open space of canvas stretchers. Painting over these found items in soft pastels with occasional punches of neon, Hands reinstates the fetish intended for these decorative consumer wrappings. Feather Duster Paintings (2014), for example, are comprised of chopped ready-made feather dusters and other cleaning supplies carefully positioned behind colourful, tie-dyed, loose weave scrim and transparent polythene. By appropriating these everyday domestic items for her evocative abstractions, she draws attention to their aesthetic properties–color, texture, line, etc–transforming them into objects worthy of attention. Hands also reveals notions of subjective tastes and cultural influences in her layering of disparate branding. In Gucci (Blue flower) (2014) a floral patterned plastic rain bonnet is overlaid with clear Gucci packaging thus elevating the taste of the cheap apparel to luxury status.
May Hands has had solo exhibitions at Community Arts Centre in Brighton, and T293 in Naples. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte in Naples, Fondazione 107 in Turin, Peckham Springs Gallery in London, and Fallout Factory in …
May Hands recontextualizes product packaging–from luxury fashion brands such as Gucci and Chanel to mass distributed fruit labels to colored cellophane–in her sculptural paintings, often mixing the discardables within the open space of canvas stretchers. Painting over these found items in soft pastels with occasional punches of neon, Hands reinstates the fetish intended for these decorative consumer wrappings. Feather Duster Paintings (2014), for example, are comprised of chopped ready-made feather dusters and other cleaning supplies carefully positioned behind colourful, tie-dyed, loose weave scrim and transparent polythene. By appropriating these everyday domestic items for her evocative abstractions, she draws attention to their aesthetic properties–color, texture, line, etc–transforming them into objects worthy of attention. Hands also reveals notions of subjective tastes and cultural influences in her layering of disparate branding. In Gucci (Blue flower) (2014) a floral patterned plastic rain bonnet is overlaid with clear Gucci packaging thus elevating the taste of the cheap apparel to luxury status.
May Hands has had solo exhibitions at Community Arts Centre in Brighton, and T293 in Naples. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte in Naples, Fondazione 107 in Turin, Peckham Springs Gallery in London, and Fallout Factory in Liverpool, among others.
