Courtesy of the artist and Carlos/Ishikawa, London
Disorienting and claustrophobic, Issy Wood’s visual vernacular, a kind of compendium of everyday objects, has the oily atmosphere of a classic Film Noir and the nonsense narrative of an Instagram feed. The American Gen Z painter, known for her portraits of Joan Rivers (Rivers is somewhat of an obsession for Wood) is filling the galleries of Goldsmiths CCA with her paintings (the show is titled All The Rage and runs until 11 August). Truncated scenes and close-up figures, leather coats and car interiors painted with intoxicated sensuality, motifs of guns and mobile phones—her paintings suggest a pathological relationship with objects and figures that any viewer can relate to with a shameful sense of guilt. This image, a new painting titled Yellow Jacket (Big Sigh) is both an ode and an adage, and touches on one of the many subtle subtexts of these apparently unrelated objects; a fetish for fashion that seems to be intertwined with contemporary femininity.
