exhibitions - 2011
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Marshall Heaton: Bombs & Babes Bombs & Babes Bombs & Babes is an exhibition of original prints created by Leamington artist Marshall Heaton. Influenced by the WWII stories from his Oma and Opa, as well as the ‘riot grrrl’ and punk rhetoric of counter-culture art in the 1990s, Heaton’s work juxtaposes images of wartime pin-up girls with images of warplanes, tanks, bombs, and soldiers. Marshall grew up with stories of WWII from his Opa, who was a tank mechanic in the German Army, and his Oma who tried to escape the horrors of war by running away. Marshall spent years filtering these stories, tossing the imagery around until he felt ready to create a visual representation of war through printmaking. Printmaking allowed him to create layers of meaning within each work, not unlike the layers of separation between the original images he used and the actual events as experienced by his grandparents. During the 1990s, he began retelling these wartime stories through printmaking. It was also at this time that the third wave of feminism, associated with punk and often called the ‘riot grrrl’ movement, was in full swing. Recycled and reconceptualised images of the classic pin-up girl as an icon of this movement were common. The counter-culture of the 1990s is an inescapable filter in Marshall’s work of this period and, when added to his family history and a healthy male perspective, has resulted in a body of work that is deceivingly complex and very thought-provoking. As Marshall explains, “The idea behind the use of the pin up model in the print is that it softens the visual image with a beautiful woman, usually scantily-clad, and gets the viewers attention and then, “WHAM!” the war imagery is there to make you think: “What is going on here? Let’s look at this print more closely.” Marshall’s point is not to marginalize women. “My art is about family history told through the filter of time…[and is to be] viewed by the art-loving audience to infer their own thoughts and opinions and to use their own imagination to create their own story.” Heaton received his Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Saskatchewan and currently resides in Leamington. His exhibition Bombs & Babes will be on display at ARTspace from January 8 – February 19, 2011, with the opening reception being held on Saturday, January 15 at 7pm. The exhibition opening is the first stop on the Thames Art Gallery’s annual winter ARTcrawl.
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