Gerald Laing 1936-2011
Belshazzar’s Feast, 2010
signed, titled, dated and numbered in pencil to margin
screenprint
printed in colours by Artizan Editions; published by the artist
printed in colours by Artizan Editions; published by the artist
edition of 90
sheet 33 x 48 inches | 85.5 x 122 cm
'For the past three years I have been painting various contemporary images, but the one subject which has engaged me most is Amy Winehouse, and there is no doubt that...
"For the past three years I have been painting various contemporary images, but the one subject which has engaged me most is Amy Winehouse, and there is no doubt that she has become my most recent Muse. What interests me is the combination of the wonderful graphic power of her visual image and the extraordinary and almost mythical events of her life. The latter are always misunderstood, misinformed and misrepresented by the media; but they are the stuff from which a mythology is created.
This is inevitable, because we use mythology to understand and encapsulate significant events, and we are always seeking new raw material. Even if Amy Winehouse is not the source of an original myth, there is no doubt that parallels can be drawn with earlier existing and similar narratives. Perhaps Amy’s role is to give these old stories a new immediacy. Meaningless stories are soon discarded. When an event becomes mythical, it becomes a useful template for understanding." – G L
The large number of paintings featuring Winehouse, already hounded mercilessly by the media and depicted as a tragic figure heading for self-destruction long before her death in 2011, is testament to the grip this woman had on Laing’s imagination and on public consciousness. 'The Kiss' (2007) and 'The Kiss II' (2008) show her kissing her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, at the MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in December 2007, seven months after their wedding. In 'Domestic Perspective' (2008), we see Winehouse and her famous beehive hairdo once again but engaged in an activity so mundane as to be unimaginable. Domestic chores, like routine marital bliss, somehow strike us as unnerving and unreal when applied to those on whom we have heaped star status and adulation. The subtext, made all too painfully and poignantly real on Winehouse’s untimely death just a few years later, at the age of twenty-seven, is that we are all complicit in the troubled and tragic fates of our heroes.
It is fitting that Laing’s career ended as it began, with a sceptical questioning of the attributes of the Pop art to which he had made a significant contribution, and which remains so strongly associated with his name.
[from the exhibition catalogue of 'Gerald Laing - Myth & Muse: the cult of celebrity', The Fine Art Society, 2024]
This is inevitable, because we use mythology to understand and encapsulate significant events, and we are always seeking new raw material. Even if Amy Winehouse is not the source of an original myth, there is no doubt that parallels can be drawn with earlier existing and similar narratives. Perhaps Amy’s role is to give these old stories a new immediacy. Meaningless stories are soon discarded. When an event becomes mythical, it becomes a useful template for understanding." – G L
The large number of paintings featuring Winehouse, already hounded mercilessly by the media and depicted as a tragic figure heading for self-destruction long before her death in 2011, is testament to the grip this woman had on Laing’s imagination and on public consciousness. 'The Kiss' (2007) and 'The Kiss II' (2008) show her kissing her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, at the MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in December 2007, seven months after their wedding. In 'Domestic Perspective' (2008), we see Winehouse and her famous beehive hairdo once again but engaged in an activity so mundane as to be unimaginable. Domestic chores, like routine marital bliss, somehow strike us as unnerving and unreal when applied to those on whom we have heaped star status and adulation. The subtext, made all too painfully and poignantly real on Winehouse’s untimely death just a few years later, at the age of twenty-seven, is that we are all complicit in the troubled and tragic fates of our heroes.
It is fitting that Laing’s career ended as it began, with a sceptical questioning of the attributes of the Pop art to which he had made a significant contribution, and which remains so strongly associated with his name.
[from the exhibition catalogue of 'Gerald Laing - Myth & Muse: the cult of celebrity', The Fine Art Society, 2024]
Provenance
The artist's estate, catalogue raisonné no. P80Literature
Gerald Laing: Graphics, exh. catalogue, Morton Metropolis (London, 2010)
Gerald Laing: Prints and Multiples, exh. catalogue, Sims Reed Gallery (London, 2012)
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