Merlin Carpenter

Merlin Carpenter's paintings juxtapose models and actresses over disconnected painterly backgrounds. Carpenter collects images from fashion magazines and appropriates them onto an abstract ground. Carpenter's work plays with themes of authorship, the relationship between contemporary and more historic image-making, and the cult of commodity. I like the way in which Carpenter combines elements of photorealist painting on top of much hazier and loose abstract painting. In this painting, Carpenter also uses a monochrome colour scheme for the background, further emphasising the distinction. I am interested in a similar process of working to this, - using both hazier and more detailed elements. I often isolate the people in my work from the background in the same way that Carpenter has. I also collect images from magazines and newspapers, and then combine them with my own photographs, to create a separation and fragmentation between layers of the image. I like carpenter's technique of painting in very different styles, so that the viewer's attention is first drawn to the model, before looking at the background. In this painting, a sense of the importance of the commodity in society is given simply through only two images, plus the titling of the work. Clues are given to the viewer as to whether this is a comment on society, and possibly a negative one at that. My work is about society and our shared experiences, and I also want to create paintings that reflect on current themes and issues; possibly using concerning images but not painting them in a negative way. I don't want my paintings to appear immediately negative to a viewer; if there is any negativity I only want this to be a more subtle undertone.