TED PIM

January 25th - February 19th, 2022

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“I came up with the title Moondance before I had started any of the paintings. I liked the feeling the word conveys. During the first lockdown we moved out to the countryside and it was beautiful - the sky felt bigger with the open space and the moon and stars felt brighter. It’s hard to put into words but I wanted to bottle the feeling up and put it into my new paintings. 

After lockdown eased I returned to the studio to find some old source images had been damaged by the sun, removing all the colour and leaving only blue hues. It reminded me of the old religious paintings that hung for too long in the houses, offices and schools as a kid in Belfast, the sun having bleached the colours right out of them. 

Old Icon is a portrait of Saint Peter, the original reproduction image hung in my family’s living room in the 90s, his skin bright green from years of sun damage, giving him an otherworldly look. I decided to dress Saint Peter in a baroque outfit that I found on the cover of Vogue, creating a hybrid of high art and mass reproduction, fashion and religion, past and future. I am interested in the dynamic between opposing elements and enjoy reinventing existing imagery and giving it a new meaning, removing the old meaning and rebuilding it in a new light.

Moondance is also informed by old Irish folklore and my rediscovering of old films with my children. In Kin for example I have used the colour palette from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959) and incorporated swans, which are often used in Celtic mythology to represent children (such as in the Children of Lir story) as well as beauty and the power of the self.

In the new florals, Nimbus and Nebula, I wanted to bring more life and movement to the canvas, so I give the arrangements a more misty background as if they could be underwater. My goal is to make the walls that hold these paintings feel like they are actively breathing.”

-Ted Pim, January 2022, Belfast

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