Blue Shop Gallery presents
Katy Papineau
'A Poison Tree’
6th - 23rd July 2023
PV Drinks Wednesday 5th July 6-9pm
72 Brixton Road, Oval SW9 6BH

Gallery opening hours:
Wednesday - Sunday | 11am - 6pm

KATY PAPINEAU

Katy Papineau (b.1991) is a figurative painter who lives and works in London. She graduated in Philosophy from the University of Bristol in 2014, and completed The Drawing Year at The Royal Drawing School in 2019. Since graduating she has participated in artist residencies in France and Italy, and has taken part in group shows at Blue Shop Gallery, Christie’s London, Frestonian Gallery, and Compton Verney, among others. Papineau is currently part of the faculty at the Royal Drawing School, where her teaching focuses on symbolism, memory and imagination.

Papineau’s practice encompasses drawing, painting and printmaking. Colour is an essential vehicle through which she conveys emotion and atmosphere, working instinctively in thin layers of paint and pigment. These layers combine to result in a subtle complexity of colour, pattern and texture. Papineau is influenced by the stage-like spaces found in medieval illuminated manuscripts and the Sienese School of painting, which provide a setting for protagonists to act out scenes of her orchestration.

Papineau’s process involves a wealth of references. Initially guided by a loosely defined area of interest, she begins a body of work by collecting visual scraps from everyday life, film, literature, folklore and art history. During this stage of image gathering, she allows the original concept to evolve, creating a large quantity of drawings from which distinct themes begin to emerge. Once a motif has been identified as a rich area for image-making, she looks at it from every angle, dissecting its meaning in culture, as well as analysing its more personal symbolism. These varied visual inputs combine to form ambiguous narrative paintings that make up Papineau’s distinctive visual universe. 

A POISON TREE

Named for Blake’s poem of trickery and wrath, A Poison Tree is an exploration of the nature of memory and the minds of others. Papineau uses symbolic imagery to investigate themes of freedom and constraint, discovery and ignorance. 

Fictional characters populate a fantasy world, acting out ambiguous narratives. Papineau applies thin layers of oil paint and pigment onto wooden panels, resulting in a gentle complexity of colour. This dreamy soft-focus gives the sense that each painting is a memory, mythologised by the passage of time. Just like remembering an event from long ago, the viewer accesses hazy images as if through a wall of glass. There is a joyful, tender aspect to many of these scenes, but something more complex sits beneath the surface. Papineau’s dream world is populated by confusion and secrecy. The artist grapples with the questions: To what extent can we know other minds? Can we trust our perceptions? How does it feel to live in multiple realities? 

Some characters are beginning to wake up from an enchanted stupor, shedding innocence in favour of experience. They draw curtains and look out, seeking information that will illuminate the truth of their domestic lives. We peer at people through plants that obscure their true nature. A barely corporeal figure slips through a door, straddling worlds but not fully present in either. Another character splits into two: which version is real? Cryptic imagery contributes to this sense of uncertainty. Figures sit in pairs but it is not clear whether they are connected or disconnected. Ribbons thread themselves around necks, snakes twist and turn. Are the undulating shapes decorative or constrictive? A bottled-up potion wriggles with potential, a juicy red fruit is consumed. Are these substances benign or bursting with poison? Such symbols are ambiguous even in the artist’s mind, with meanings that shift underfoot.

Papineau began this body of work by looking at a wide array of sources including film, art history, reality TV and fairy stories. During this period of discovery, she kept a regular diary, which allowed her to keep emotions at the forefront of her mind. At first, she would let herself be drawn to the imagery she wanted to make without imposing meaning onto it. This enabled a fluid process of symbols gestating in her mind’s eye, fusing with personal experience. She would then draw and draw, eventually settling on images with particular resonance and developing them into paintings. Like interpreting a recurring dream after the fact, the personal significance of certain motifs would begin to emerge as they embedded themselves into the work. In A Poison Tree, Papineau has created a world that contains her fears, hopes, and unanswered questions. 

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears: 
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles. 

- William Blake, 1794

Email hello@blueshopcottage.com to register for the catalogue.

‘A Poison Tree’ by William Blake

I was angry with my friend; 
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe: 
I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears: 
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles. 

And it grew both day and night. 
Till it bore an apple bright. 
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine. 

And into my garden stole, 
When the night had veild the pole; 
In the morning glad I see; 
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.