GALLERY: “We must be careful about what we pretend to be”

Friday 06 March 2020

A "poignant" work that struck a chord with the late Caroline Flack is among those on display in a new exhibition by 'twins' probing society's obsession with social media.

‘I Can Resist Everything Except Temptation’, which is on display until 13 March at Private and Public in Sommerville Street, is one of the Connor Brothers’ largest exhibitions to date.

The twins - Franklyn and Brendan - were brought up within a secretive and highly controversial cult known as ‘The Family’, an extreme Christian cult born out of the hippy movement in 1968 and founded by David Berg.

Pictured: The duo’s paintings feature imagery straight out of 1950s Pulp Fiction novels.

After growing up deprived of access to information, the boys turned their backs on The Family at 16. After several years riding the freight trains they settled in the Brooklyn area of New York.  

Or so most people think… 'Franklyn and Brendan' are in fact fictional characters created by the artists, whose work is steeped in references to both historical and popular culture and presents an almost anthropological view of contemporary western society. 

“As artists, the Connor Brothers have always been interested in the blurred line between truth and fiction, and in this exhibition, they explore that boundary, and what it means for each of us,” Gallery Director Chris Clifford said. 

Pictured: “There is a sense in which they provided the same escapism we now seek online."

“The fact that we, as humans, need to develop an online social media image that is not an accurate reflection of our lives reveals an uncomfortable truth about us all. 

“What exactly that truth is maybe hard to pin down precisely. Perhaps it’s that the contemporary world feeds us constant adverts designed to make us feel an inadequacy relieved only by purchase, and this has become mirrored in our social media lives where online approval temporarily gives us a reassuring hit of self-worth. It seems that our greatest subconscious fear really is that we are ordinary.” 

“I Can Resist Everything Except Temptation” aims to refer to the “social- media obsessed and post-truth age we live in, where fiction frequently masquerades as fact”. 

The duo’s paintings feature imagery straight out of 1950s Pulp Fiction novels, which aimed to provide readers with an escape from the mundanity of ordinary life. 

“There is a sense in which they provided the same escapism we now seek online as we scroll endlessly through images of lives supposedly more interesting than our own,” Mr Clifford noted.

“The text added to the paintings, whether the artists own or borrowed from writers they admire, is, for the most part, intended to call into question the truth of these fabricated worlds.” 

The colourful paintings are created through a lengthy process that involves several stages, from a giclée print to oil painting. 

Among the works on display is one featuring half a woman’s face with the inscription “We must be careful about what we pretend to be”. TV presenter Caroline Flack, who attended an exhibition by the Connor Brothers last year, shared the painting on her Instagram page.

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

In late November Caroline Flack came to our studio to be photographed for a portrait she’d commissioned. She was kind, mischievous, and down-to-earth - all of the qualities that made her a relatable and a near universally liked public figure. She had a new relationship, a positive media profile, and a stellar career presenting a show that she clearly loved. She seemed happy, and with good reason. Now, less than three months later, she’s taken her own life. The events between Caroline’s studio visit and her suicide reveal the toxic nature of our relationship to celebrity and the brutal ruthlessness of the media. Caroline was a victim of both. Whenever the press relentlessly and remorselessly vilifies a public figure for some mistake in their personal life, past or present, the argument made is that you cannot use the press to further your career without giving up your rights to privacy in your personal life. The cost of inviting the media into your life is that you cannot pick and choose which areas they decide to cover, and how they decide to cover it. You are, the expression goes, fair game, and the press is justified in whatever they write, no matter how cruel (or untrue) the story. This is, of course, bullshit. It’s an argument that attempts to place the responsibility for the abusive actions of the press back on the victims of those actions. When the Sun this week ran a story (taken down after news of her death) mocking Caroline and featuring a drawing of her with a message saying ‘I’ll fucking lamp you’, it was presumably, in their eyes, her fault they published it because she’d chosen a career in the public eye. It’s that standard abuser’s warped logic of blaming the victim for their abusive behaviour, the tabloid equivalent of - she made me do it. To read the full story @thebookofman please click the link in our bio, photograph @nicky_hamilton

A post shared by The Connor Brothers (@connorbrothersofficial) onFeb 17, 2020 at 6:32am PST

Following her death, the Connor Brothers shared a picture of Caroline, taken at their studio. 

The caption accompanying the post read: “The events between Caroline’s studio visit and her suicide reveal the toxic nature of our relationship to celebrity and the brutal ruthlessness of the media. Caroline was a victim of both.”

GALLERY: Blurring the lines between fact and fiction...