Exhibitions
Abi Birkinshaw : ‘Mr. Brightside’s Kitchen’
“I make paintings that narrate my own lived experience as a queer artist; they are a synthesis of my day-to-day life”. Preview: 6 – 9pm Weds 11th May
The work in this exhibition forms a reflection on interactions with death. Headless figures and disembodied limbs co-exist alongside everyday objects in a world saturated with oil paint. This liminal space between the real, imagined, past and the present is where my work often lies.
Painting is thinking time. I process things I don’t or can’t talk about very well through the act of making a painting. The titular painting ‘Mr. Brightside’s Kitchen’ is me dealing directly with the fallout from my brother’s death ten years ago. This was the painting that started the ball rolling for the rest of the work in the show. It’s not all about my brother; I started thinking more about death in an expanded sense. I call the show ‘Mr. Brightside’s kitchen’ because of a memory I have of my brother, Jamie - a memory only I have - of him singing ‘Mr. Brightside’ in his kitchen. I’m not sure if its the same in England, but if you were in your twenties in South Wales in the noughties, this song was an anthem. It’s a terrible song. I’m tying together the exclusivity of my particular memory with the shared kind of ownership of Mr. Brightside the song. This, I think, creates an odd kind of liminal space which in my head, equates to the idea and the paradoxical nature of death itself.
Painting is thinking time. I process things I don’t or can’t talk about very well through the act of making a painting. The titular painting ‘Mr. Brightside’s Kitchen’ is me dealing directly with the fallout from my brother’s death ten years ago. This was the painting that started the ball rolling for the rest of the work in the show. It’s not all about my brother; I started thinking more about death in an expanded sense. I call the show ‘Mr. Brightside’s kitchen’ because of a memory I have of my brother, Jamie - a memory only I have - of him singing ‘Mr. Brightside’ in his kitchen. I’m not sure if its the same in England, but if you were in your twenties in South Wales in the noughties, this song was an anthem. It’s a terrible song. I’m tying together the exclusivity of my particular memory with the shared kind of ownership of Mr. Brightside the song. This, I think, creates an odd kind of liminal space which in my head, equates to the idea and the paradoxical nature of death itself.
