Una D’Aragona
Artists Statement
‘There is allure in the abject. We are all simultaneously repulsed and attracted by the dark and degraded. d’Aragona’s work accepts the whole of being human, the monstrous and the beautiful, displaying the two nakedly intertwined.’
Una d’Aragona’s most recent series of abstracted heads, entitled ‘Beautiful Monsters,’ is alluringly uneasy. We are met with a tumultuous flurry of gestural mark making, sometimes raw and visceral, at other times lyrical and flowing, in tones of warm reds and oranges. Each painting is a sensual, fleshy encounter. In amongst the improvised organic shapes, our eye is drawn to the figurative elements: a bruised, pouting mouth, the direct gaze of a contemplating eye. These works do not shy away from the raw side of human nature. The revelation of darkness is balanced by a passion for life, emotion, joy. d’Aragona holds these two halves of the self together in her portraits, allowing them to peacefully coexist, decadently showing us the beauty in baseness.
In this way, the abstracted heads of d’Aragona explore the tumultuous landscape of the human psyche, making the interiorised exteriorised, weeping and heeling in the open air. Although the artist is drawn to the figure and the face, she disrupts the figurative with the abstract, or, as she prefers to call it, ‘the improvised.’ This spontaneity ‘allows for the unexpected to occur. It allows for chance, for accident and spill, and for these to become meaningful.’ This echoes what makes us human: our mistakes, our spills and oozes, become the mouldering compost that engenders who we are. There is allure in the abject. We are all simultaneously repulsed and attracted by the dark and degraded. d’Aragona’s work accepts the whole of being human, the monstrous and the beautiful, displaying the two nakedly intertwined.
d’Aragona’s process is playful. The artist unguardedly collects images from magazines or digital resources, using them either to explore marks through collage, or as a basis for loose, linear sketches with oils on paper. Thick applications, layering, and the removal of paint is integral to the way her paintings communicate themselves. These ticks and lacerations reveal the underlayers of the work, exposing the painting’s interior: it’s primal foundations. The negations and additions, scabs and disintegrations of the material symbolise the duality of being human: fantasy and reality, control and instinct, plasticity and deterioration.
For more information: https://www.unadaragona.co.uk