London-born artist Penny Slinger utilises collage, photography, and film to explore themes of sexuality, the self, and femininity, and is closely linked to the genre of feminist surrealism. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Read MoreSlinger was interested in surrealist film and the performing arts from an early age. She studied a Diploma in Art and Design at Chelsea College of Arts, graduating with first class honours in 1969. During her studies, Slinger made a series of experimental films that explored female sexuality, surrealism, and eroticism.
In the 1970s, Slinger began staging photographs to make collages and started writing poetry and texts to accompany her visual diaries. She posed in her own photographs, using her body as a base to explore ideas including the representation of the self, female desire, dreamscapes, and surrealism.
Slinger's book An Exorcism (1977) was developed out of a series of photo collages, poems, and texts. After visiting a derelict stately home in the Northamptonshire countryside with friend and collaborator Peter Whitehead, Slinger became fascinated with the location and its psychic atmosphere. She began filming and photographing the house and its empty rooms, with the intent to make a film investigating the metaphysics of the unconscious.
The project later developed from a film into a series of collages. Using herself as a photographic subject, Slinger shot a variety of scenes exploring the birth and death of self, as well as the facets of female psychosis. An Exorcism depicts both dreamlike and nightmarish scenery, and is influenced by surrealist photography of the 1920s and 1930s.
Evolving over a period of more than seven years, An Exorcism is regarded a seminal work of feminist surrealism.
Slinger has produced numerous public commissions, including the 'Historical Murals' series at Anguilla Airport (1989); a series of paintings for the Museum of Saint Martin: On the Trail of Arawaks, Marigot (1990—1991); and a series of stamp designs for the Anguilla government (1993).
In 2019 Slinger produced a golden doll house dress in collaboration with Dior for their autumn/winter couture collection.
Slinger's first book 50% The Visible Woman (1971) was born out of a desire to capture the different ways women are seen, and how they see themselves. Comprising a collection of writing, poetry, and collage, 50% The Visible Woman illustrated various dimensions of women, including as objects of desire and as goddesses.
Slinger has also contributed to publications including Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy (1979), and The Path of the Mystic Lover: Baul Songs of Passion and Ecstasy (1993).
Slinger was the subject of Penny Slinger: Out of the Shadows (2019), a documentary directed by Richard Kovitch.
In 1973, Slinger was awarded the Achievement in Art grant from the Cassandra Foundation in Illinois.
Penny Slinger has presented work in solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Select solo exhibitions include 50/50, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2021); Tantric Transformations, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London (2019); Inside Out, Fortnight Institute, New York (2019); Penny Slinger, Blum & Poe, Tokyo (2015); Self Impressions, Riflemaker, London (2015); An Exorcism Revisited, Broadway 1602 Gallery, New York (2012); Hear What I Say, Riflemaker, London (2012); A Photo Romance, Riflemaker, London (2011); Arawak Renaissance — The Tribute Continues, New World Gallery, Anguilla (1993); Visions of Ecstasy, Visionary Gallery, New York (1982); Secrets, Mirandy Gallery, London (1977).
Select group exhibitions include Oh Marilyn!, Gazelli Art House, London (2022); 5,471 miles, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2020); Bodily Objects, Richard Saltoun Gallery (online) (2020); Some of the Hole, Simian, Copenhagen (2020); The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree, Camden Art Centre, London (2020); Tantra: enlightenment to revolution, British Museum, London (2020).
Slinger's artworks are held in public and private collections internationally, including the Tate, London; Georges Marci Monet Collection, Gstaad; Museum of Drawers, Antwerp; and the Sammlung Verbund Collection, Vienna.
Penny Slinger is represented by Blum & Poe and Richard Saltoun Gallery.
Penny Slinger's website can be found here, and her Instagram can be found here.
Phoebe Bradford | Ocula | 2022
