Soup presents the gallery’s ninth exhibition, India Nielsen’s solo exhibition ‘crayola sphinx or dogwoman⁣’. Nielsen (b. 1991) lives and works in London. She received her MA in Painting from The Royal College of Art in 2018, having previously completed her BA in Fine Art at The Slade School of Fine Art.

Nielsen’s painting practice invariably incorporates an eclectic pop-culture lexicon informed by exposure to early internet content and customs, the advent of Cartoon Network and MTV UK, and the information overload instigated by social media, smartphones and twenty-four hour news cycles. However, when merged with the artist’s own interest in the philosophical, the astrological and the art historical, as well as an upbringing in the Roman Catholic church, these touchstones of contemporary culture tend towards the allegorical. Rendered in a vibrant, hyperpop palette of generous impasto oil, Nielsen’s cast of characters and the scrawled cursive script that often accompanies them serve as symbolic cyphers or sigils for the artist’s own personal opinions and emotions. 

Recently, following a period of teaching and tutoring that saw her evaluating the artistic process from a fresh perspective, Nielsen has reaffirmed her dedication to painting through the introduction of inventive and experimental physical and conceptual techniques. Principally, patinated copper leaf and powder affixed to the canvas surface, and the subsequent tones and textures accrued through its enforced oxidation, evokes both the organic and the antiquated. Requiring a relinquishing of control over the results, this novel ground for the artist’s customary concentrated impasto and chalky oil stick compositions at once initiates a timelessness rare in present-day painting and negates the negative space present in an intimidating blank canvas. Additionally, in a further attempt to feel corporeally closer to the act of creation, Nielsen eschewed screens in the studio. Instead, surrounding herself with printed reference imagery and her own subsequent sketches and drawings, the artist avoided the daily distractions ever present when living our lives online, whilst somewhat ironically engaging with the recent societal trend of technological renouncement. 

The paintings, too, have come to reflect the anachronistic environment of their making. A more muted colour palette compliments the copper patina, as the artist’s patented pop-culture reference points take a backseat in favour of art historical allusions to Paula Rego’s canonical series of canine pseudo-self-portraits or Odilon Redon’s beautiful, dark, twisted, symbolist fantasies. A religious reformation is also evident, as the copper gilding and devotional designs appear akin to altarpieces or religious relics. Any ecclesiastical undertones are enunciated on the exhibition’s first floor, where Nielsen debuts new stained-glass compositions. One depicts St. Dymphna, patron saint of the mentally ill or emotionally distressed, the other Robert Plutchik’s philosophically famed wheel of emotions, an illumination perhaps on contrasting secular and sacred coping mechanisms.