Silk road: Victoria Rowley on her provocative prints and the slow nature of making
It being 2017, things are difficult enough for young art graduates in London, career-wise. One imagines it's even more difficult to move into a medium as niche as oriental silk printing, and trickier still to cover these delicate silks with images of phalluses. Convention, or the easy path, doesn't seem to be Victoria Rowley's thing. At just 25, she has posed nude for photographer Grace Vane Percy, tried her hand at burlesque dancing and won an international graduate award for her London College of Fashion collection.
Now, her silk prints are the subject of a new exhibition at Opium Den, a bar housed in the basement of Pan Asian restaurant Nam Long Le Shaker. The South Kensington hotspot gained cult status in the 1980s, attracting thirsty celebrities with its potent 'Flaming Ferrari' cocktail, still on the menu. Rowley's colourful silks line the walls, at once standing out and fitting in, among an amalgam of Oriental and Western artworks.
Aptly entitled 'Show Off Silks', the exhibition is a provocative one, wherein orchids bloom around patterned phalluses and abstract images of slugs suck their way across delicate swathes of material. 'I'm trying to take the humour out of these sexual subjects,' Rowley explains of her expressive works.
They're certainly not funny. They're brave, imaginative and multifaceted. Their three-dimensional nature is partly down to the complex compositional process Rowley has developed, using layers and layers of Procion dyes. She enjoys 'the slow nature of making. Something that comes into being with immediate effect wouldn't work for me.'
Considering how so many of her contemporaries are moving into the digital sphere, such a physical, handcrafted process is particularly important to her. Rowley speaks of how artists today fixate too much on 'the newness of things, on brightness and pureness'. Her work has an antique quality to it (despite the punchy, modern subject matter) and is presented in museum-like Perspex boxes.
Perhaps this is why her works look so at home in their unusual surroundings, where international curios abound. There's a sense of theatre that gels with Rowley's boldly performative works and fearless personality. It's exciting to see an ancient medium like silk printing being placed in such capable, contemporary hands.
INFORMATION
’Show Off Silks’ is on view until 2 March 2017. For more information, visit Victoria Rowley’s website
ADDRESS
Nam Long Le Shaker
159 Old Brompton Road
London SW5 0LJ
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Elly Parsons is the Digital Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees Wallpaper.com and its social platforms. She has been with the brand since 2015 in various roles, spending time as digital writer – specialising in art, technology and contemporary culture – and as deputy digital editor. She was shortlisted for a PPA Award in 2017, has written extensively for many publications, and has contributed to three books. She is a guest lecturer in digital journalism at Goldsmiths University, London, where she also holds a masters degree in creative writing. Now, her main areas of expertise include content strategy, audience engagement, and social media.
-
A new book highlights the work of Turkish interior designer Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu
‘Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu: Luxury Redefined’, published by Rizzoli, traces the career of leading Istanbul-based designer Zeynep Fadillioglu, the first woman to design a mosque in Turkey
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
London gallery Incubator’s six emerging artists to see in spring 2024
Incubator's spring programme features six artists in consecutive two-week solo shows at the London, Chiltern Street gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Blue Copper Loft is a Dubai sanctuary for a modern nomad
Blue Copper Loft designed by Anarchitect in the heart of Dubai is a peaceful, yet luxurious sanctuary for a modern nomad
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
London gallery Incubator’s six emerging artists to see in spring 2024
Incubator's spring programme features six artists in consecutive two-week solo shows at the London, Chiltern Street gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Kembra Pfahler revisits ‘The Manual of Action’ for CIRCA
Artist Kembra Pfahler will lead a series of classes in person and online, with a short film streamed from Piccadilly Circus in London, as well as in Berlin, Milan and Seoul, over three months until 30 June 2024
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Yinka Shonibare considers the tangled relationship between Africa and Europe at Serpentine South
Yinka Shonibare‘s ‘Suspended States’ at Serpentine South, London, considers history, refuge and humanitarian support (until 1 September 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’
Gavin Turk considers wasteful consumer culture in ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
By Rowland Bagnall Published
-
Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: Bloomsbury’s untold story
‘Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story’ is a new exhibition at Charleston in Lewes, UK, that charts the duo's creative legacy
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Don’t miss: Thea Djordjadze’s site-specific sculptures in London
Thea Djordjadze’s ‘framing yours making mine’ at Sprüth Magers, London, is an exercise in restraint
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘Accordion Fields’ at Lisson Gallery unites painters inspired by London
‘Accordian Fields’ at Lisson Gallery is a group show looking at painting linked to London
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Fetishism, violence and desire: Alexis Hunter in London
‘Alexis Hunter: 10 Seconds’ at London's Richard Saltoun Gallery focuses on the artist’s work from the 1970s, disrupting sexual stereotypes
By Hannah Silver Published