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Next Thursday, between 7-9pm, a new exhibition opens at CoExist Galleries at TAP which includes Hayley Lock’s None of Beauties Daughters and works by Yuko Nasu and Liv Pennington.

Curated by Amy McKenny and Jonathan Kipps, they are asking: “What is it about someone’s face that makes us think we know them; or what they are like as a person? Why is it that sometimes we think we recognise someone when in actual fact we have never seen them before? In this exhibition imagination and observation become reality and we are invited to meet the people these artists present to us.”

For the last two years, Hayley Lock has been developing a series of works depicting characters from her imaginary world of monarchy and noble folk. Pseudo sexual characters adorn behavioral oddments through a terrifying back – story of historical events as yet untold, titled ‘Imperial Leather’. Derived from snippets of overheard conversation and appropriated images Locks works weaves new narratives of history and myth through a complicated and sometimes mysterious tale of heartache, lust and delusional thinking. ‘None of Beauty’s Daughters’ introduces new characters, modes of transport, and trophies that may or may not exist within the story that as yet still remains hidden from the viewer, forcing the audience to re-invent their own dialogue within the works. Works are repeatedly revisited by Lock over a prolonged period of time allowing for constant reinvention to an often bizarre and outlandish end.

Although Yuko Nasu has a gestural way with paint there are still tangible features and expressions evident in her work: just enough for the viewer to feel they have acquired an insight into the personality of the people portrayed. Nasu has embarked on an on-going investigation to discover which elements people use to recognise or differentiate between faces. Whether it is the blatant features or not, what is surprising is that sometimes her imagined figures seem strangely familiar.

Liv Pennington presented two studio portraits of herself, each to several different online retouchers. One photo with the request: ‘please can you do a pageant makeover?’ the other ‘I trust your judgement on the level of retouching needed’. The final images are presented as canvas prints as a tongue in cheek means of reflecting the current domestic trend and the longer standing belief that canvas equals high art. Here we find a play between looking, how we want to look and how others perceive us.

CoExist Galleries / TAP, North Rd, Southend, SS1 2YA

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