Artist Review and Inspiration - PENNY GORING

Yesterday my class went on a London trip to visit the Tate the ICA and other commercial galleries to get an idea of installation, curation and design for our upcoming MA Final Major Project show. While I wasn't able to go on the school trip, i was able to google some of the artists from inspiration photos on my classmate's instagrams.I also get emails from the Richard Saltoun Gallery which allows to be notified for upcoming shows as well as artist inspo, CVs and interviews. One artist that particularly stuck out to me was Penny Goring. Turns out I had seen pictures of her paintings before but i never realised she was the artist. The show that was seen was ‘Penny World at the ICA’, where the artist and poet shows through her art a testimony of sorts for surviving through a hellish existence. This is a romantic idea, but one Goring fully embodies, having overcome personal trauma, poverty and mental illness through 30 years of compulsive artmaking. Entering Goring’s world feels like creeping into the depths of her brain; there is a sense that she produced this work to be viewed privately. The main wall of the downstairs gallery is covered in Goring’s ‘Image Macros’ (2013–22), Microsoft Paint collages that initially existed online but are here blown up to wall-sized proportions. In Dethbone (2014), Goring stares frostily at the viewer with the ferocious words ‘I FUK DEATH WIV MY LOVE BONE’ on her chest. Through digital artworks, poetry and GIFs, Goring established herself in the alt-lit scene of the 2010s. Her Tumblr page contains streams of untameable language, cigarette-in-hand webcam selfies and biro drawings of contorted women bleeding, shitting and masturbating. Goring’s sharp charisma penetrates all this work.1

I am drawn to many concepts within her work, one of which is using a collection of artefacts that make up her installation. Thinking about my MA show, I don't have a single piece to show off, or a single work that will say the amount I want. Instead, my work looks across mediums in order to create a world that my audience will step into. In my case, this space will represent my computer and, as an addition, my experience with online behaviour and discourse. I am aiming to include images (both digital and physical), video and word. I like the way she uses both the wall, floor and intermediate space in order to create a space to travel across her work. While I won't have as much space as Going, of course, it is still inspiring to understand how to utilise the space I do have. I want to show all aspects of my work without overwhelming. muddying and quite frankly, confusing myself. When in doubt I need to learn to keep it simple, I know I will have a single wall and floor space, which through exploring curational ideas such as Goring's, I understand i can mix image/ film/ word/ and possible sound. 

Installation view, PENNY WORLD, ICA, London, UK (2022) [The class went on a London trip to see this, i missed the trip but i got insight through student chats and google searches]

A few works stood out to me for their colour and storytelling. In particular her video Fear (2013),in which one of two lo-fi video poems, she erratically lists her phobias: ‘I fear hip replacement … I fear people.’ While in Please Make Me Love You (2014), she deadpans: ‘love you like my mum’s dead uncle … love you like god’s luxury omni-dick … love you like tenuous lol’1 Aesthetically the videos look like pixel squares changing colour, perhaps relating to mood colours in a smooth beat type pattern. Working with pixelation and the idea of digital anonymity the spoken word felt more like confessions as the “reader” couldn't be seen. The colours and shapes of the pixels didn't even give away a human-like feel, it was completely squared and hidden. It makes me think about what will be more successful regards to sharing my screenshots of online messages, and about whether to keep them as their “original” texts with their spelling mistakes and grammar or to read them to make them more impactful and direct. Although that being said the humour of poor grammar and tone-deafness won't be shown through a human voice, a google voice perhaps as the pronunciation will be affected but it still might be too far from its original and accurate form. 

Another area of interest was the humour she uses, while I don't mean "haha" humour there is deadpan/ dark humour of expressing one's emotions creatively. The humour functions more as a psychological antidote to her often painful and vulnerable subject matter. The introduction of the artist’s voice animates the work and is an excellent addition to the show, which makes it more personal if that was possible considering the show is named after her. Curator Rosalie Doubal’s decision to include it only in these videos leaves me wanting more. There is no sense of time in this world. Goring draws on evergreen themes, such as systemic violence, lack of access to affordable therapy and the UK’s cost-of-living crisis. Her work parallels that of Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse: Bourgeois’s textile figurines, such as Single I (1996), are clear predecessors of Goring’s hand-sewn Spandex dolls; while in a 2017 interview with i-D, Goring quoted Hesse’s experimentations with loss as a touchstone. The work undoubtedly depicts violence but also suggests empathy for the turmoil it illustrates. 

As an artist who has worked through trauma and poverty, Goring makes a point of using food dye, biros, and other inexpensive or free materials to make her work. If she uses a computer, she takes advantage of the free program Microsoft Paint that often comes preloaded on it, which is something I also do. Mostly this is to save money as well as my computer illiteracy which is ironic considering my age and the fact a lot of my work is video/imagery. I use a lot of computer formats although I keep it as simple as possible with free user-friendly apps such as Pixlr, Clipchap and Vimeo, rather than photoshop and Adobe. To see this famous artist using items that are low-cost and accessible to all is very comforting as it proves the theory that ANYONE can make successful art and top-dollar items aren't at all required. In her more recent work, she uses her financial restrictions, lack of therapy, and housing issues to address the reality faced by a lot of creatives in London at a time of a cost-of-living crisis.“Despite the violence they depict, there is a sense of comfort to be found in Penny’s work,” Rosalie Doubal, curator at the ICA, said in a statement. ” Her works are empathetic; they embody the disorientation and stasis brought on by states such as grief. They also offer strength and, in their humour, disarming normality.” 2

I found her work very topical for today's political climate and the living crisis, which is something alot of her audiences will be able to relate to. She has creative processes of trauma and experienced violence while expressing states of fear, panic, grief, loss, and powerlessness. Her entire production has been informed by the social conditions in the UK that she has been facing during the years, such as lack of funds, inadequate therapeutic support, and restrictive housing conditions. Penny World will address the ongoing issues coming out of financial precarity and underline the significance of creativity in the peak of austerity. 3 I really admire her bravery and flat-out honesty, there's no manual on how to show your grief and sad emotions, especially when you have to be aware of your audience's tolerance in regards to trigger and content warnings. In my case, I'm going to have a warning next to my work, to warn of upsetting contents and language used. I want to show the good the bad and the ugly of what ive experienced online and present that to my audiences using humour and honesty in an autobiographical methodology. There is also way of knowing who my work will affect and how so while i will need to perhaps censor how my work talks, I am hesitant to actual censor myself as then it would not be accurate to my experiences.  

1 http://arcadiamissa.com/penny-goring/.   

2 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/in-pictures-penny-goring-world-ica-2127731 

3 https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/institute-contemporary-arts-penny-goring