anti-selfie 2015
Triptych 2015 panel 1 self esteem engine
Triptych 2015 panel 2 check me
Triptych 2015 panel 3 apparatus for the socially awkward
green hoodie 2015 enamel on polycotton 40 x 40 cm
Triptych 2015 panel 1 self esteem engine panel 2 check me panel 3 apparatus for the socially awkward All panels enamel, aerosol and mixed media on polycotton 122 x 122cm
social#butterfly#net 2015 aerosol and enamel on polycotton 60 x 60 cm
‘…My focus has recently shifted away from my explorations into national identity to employing a new high-key punk palette with hard graphic elements that explores questions surrounding self portraiture in the age of the selfie. This exhibition is my abject protest to the narcissism of the selfie, through both a combination of self portraiture and split composition tableaux works. The paintings are uncompromising, eye popping and even jarring at times, as I have employed a contrasting loose gestural figure painting against hard edge graphic elements reminiscent of Punk Poster Art. This I see as a defiant critique of the paradoxes and quick dumbness of the selfie…’
…’So, to a degree, Tim Vagg as an artist his instinct is towards the larrikan. A boisterous, badly behaved young man,…. yet badly behaved only because he demands a re-assessment. A larrikan, because he clearly has a disregard for convention, indeed he’s something of a maverick, but I would add, an intelligent one at that.
What I personally like about Tim’s work is that not only does he reference history by re-contextualizing it by virtue of this very act, but moreover, he actually says something relevant,…something socially necessary. His concerns are legitimate and he demands us to learn the lessons of history…’
- anti-selfie exhibition opening speech by Catherine Asquith