Anna Parkina - Winners and Witness

Wilkinson Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works by young Russian artist Anna Parkina. The exhibition consists of recent works on paper and video. The artist will also stage a performance at Wilkinson Gallery in July.

Parkina’s work addresses the question of the voyeur and awareness of being seen. Being under constant surveillance is a contemporary situation, extending from the use of CCTV to the ever-present paparazzi in the celebrity world. She takes up the theme of ‘reality’ television in which the ‘actual’ reality is that everything onscreen is a self-conscious act. Winners and Witness, 2008, one of two video works, edits together sounds from quiz shows in which ‘real’ people are encouraged to behave like actors in everyday situations; forever happy, dazzled by bright lights and day-glo of the modern television studio.

In Parkina’s collages and drawings there exists a contortion in many of the figures depicted as they shield their faces from the viewer’s gaze. The artist regularly places herself into the narrative of the scenes, her presence linking these formal works to her performances. The infusion of drama into these figurative works puts them in opposition to historic notions of the voyeur, namely the Impressionists interest in La Loge in which it was implied that the figures were calm, willing participants in the game of spotting and being spotted. Here instead, the cinematic quality to the works suggest a reference to thrillers such as Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) or Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) giving the works, especially when viewed en masse, disturbing, sinister, yet mesmerising edge.

Anna Parkina lives and works in Moscow having studied in Paris and California. She has exhibited widely in America and Europe. This will be her first exhibition in the UK.

Anna Parkina
Winners and Witness