23.02.2018

Augustine Carr

painting

An appropriated book cover is painted over, not so much defaced as embellished, and then it is scanned and printed at a much-enlarged scale. ‘Tricks and Magic’ is a photograph of an open spread book, one of the pages is obscured by a sequence of coloured squares whereas the opposite page, depicting a blindfolded boy pointing upwards, is left intact. The veiled boy is echoed by the paint that veils the image beneath it. The relationship between the paintings and the particular books used is not specific or conceptual but open and elliptical. But it is the photographic enlargement of the paintings that works to both distance us from the emotively painted book and bring us closer to it through its enlargement. The device is both undone and magnified – as is the emotional intimacy.

augustinecarr.com