EMIL SANDS

‘What is the relationship between flawed bodies and cultivated artifice? I am always interested in the dynamics of who gets to see what, and when.’ – Emil Sands

Emil Sands, a London-born painter and writer currently living in New York, explores the complex psychological territory between seeing and being seen. Through a focused exploration of physical form, gesture and the ways in which we present ourselves, consciously or not, Sands paints a world rich with both classical allusion and contemporary engagement. His paintings are at once portraits and landscapes; mindful of the codes and orthodoxies of both genres, he plays with their conventions while addressing themes of vulnerability and exposure drawn from personal experience.

Whereas recent works have focused on beach scenes or seascapes, where bodily freedoms are performed in a public arena, new paintings retreat into private realms. These formal settings, manicured spaces including gardens populated by classical statuary, bring a heightened psychological aspect, poised between interiority and exteriority, privacy and self-presentation, physical enclosure and bodily disclosure.

These worlds reveal themselves slowly through technique and composition: subtle gradations of colour and tonal shifts between warm and cool as the brush describes flesh, marble, foliage or water; the deployment of a decisive, if at times disorienting crop suggestive of a furtive or desirous glance. One painting features two figures, stilled in profile, as if aware of being watched. In another, we see a character taking a photograph of a topless figure. Sightlines activate All Day Duchess in which, staring directly at the viewer, a woman drapes herself on the ledge of a swimming pool; her pale skin and posture are reminiscent of classical sculpture while, seen in profile, an ancient bust, nose broken, eyes blank, dominates the foreground of the painting.

In these works, Sands asks, ‘What does “posing” mean? Who has the power in these images? I don’t have answers to these questions, but I was asking them while I was making the work.’

The residency and exhibition are part of our Miro Presents programme, which highlights the work of invited artists through solo presentations, curated exhibitions, artists’ residencies and commissions, within both the physical and virtual spaces of the gallery.

Courtesy Victoria Miro.