230:, 2017) or laughing out loud. Halls cites Cixousâs retelling of the Chinese general Sun Tse âwho decapitates a group of women he is trying to train as soldiers, so disconcerted, so disgusted is he by their persistent laughter and refusal to take his orders seriously. This resonates with me deeply. Acts of political resistance come in many forms and when I paint images of women laughing, eating, reclining, reading or simply looking, I am always cognisant of the fact that the most seemingly innocuous actions can be subversive.â In many of the images, the womenâs âbadâ behaviour becomes less innocuous and tips towards making them a danger to others and possibly to themselves. They jilt, commit arson, vandalise, loot, maraud.
191:, she performed Inferna, a character she created after being inspired by a costume she found in a charity shop in Brixton. Whilst she used external performers for other works in the series, self-portraits have always been an important aspect of her oeuvre though Halls has stated that she rarely paints herself as herself. Halls allows paintings to evolve in the making rather than beginning with preparatory drawings. This mirrors her interest in depicting women in evolving states, in liminal states, held sometimes in suspension.
152:, and the fashion for glamorising the past), Hallsâs paintings examine gender, class, identity and sexuality. A voracious researcher, Halls has claimed she is magpie-like, attracted by beautiful things but also by the discarded and careworn. She collects costumes - often foraged from charity or thrift shops - from different countries and periods, aware that the stories of their owners may remain forever unknowable.
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National
Portrait Gallery, London, The R.A. Summer Exhibition, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Discerning Eye, The Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Competition. In 2004, Halls won the Villiers David Prize which enabled her to visit Berlin for the first time and make her 'Cabaret' series. In 2010, she won the Founderâs Purchase Prize at the ING Discerning Eye show and thus entered their collection. Her 2019
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Her paintings focus on the materiality of peopleâs lived environments, seducing the viewer with exquisite still lifes or her emphasis on fabrics and hair. Often domestic in scale and subject, they rebut the notion that grandiose history paintings are a better barometer of contemporary life. They ask:
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Hallsâs work is in myriad private and public collections, both in the U.K. and overseas. Besides solo exhibitions at Beaux Arts, Bath; Hay Hill, London; and at Reuben Colley Fine Art, Birmingham, her work has been shown in numerous group shows in the UK and US, including the BP Portrait Award at The
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Growin up, she aspired to be an actress and her long-standing interest in drama and performance is evident in the baroque sensibility of many of her works. This is reflected in her name as she changed it to "Hall" in hopes that she would be inducted into the Hall of Fame one day. Hall has said that
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Halls has also explored consumption and abstinence, as in her 'Appetite' series (2013â14), where women transgress by not behaving as they are expected to: Halls shows one gorging on popcorn, eating with her mouth open (referencing, perhaps, the eighteenth century celebrity portraitist
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One of Hallsâs most renowned series - 'Laughing While' (2012 onwards) â depicts women engaged in more transgressive acts that interrogate encultured norms around femininity. These women are always active subjects â often breaking propriety just by eating messily
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In 2022, Halls featured on
Episode 1 of BBC's Extraordinary Portraits hosted by Tinie Tempah where she was commissioned to paint twin sisters who survived a crocodile attack in Mexico. Also in 2022, Halls'
283:. The portraitâs pose derived from an amalgam of all the live moments, mannerisms and movements, Halls witnessed in her studio while Horse performed her best-loved song âCareful,â for her live and
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and her innovation of showing her teeth in her self-portraits â something that was considered uncouth or deemed the sign of a maniac; Halls paints the teeth last in her paintings). Inspired by
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she often equates painting with performance and that her models collude with her in creating theatrical scenarios for which the viewer is invited to tease out narratives.
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how is womenâs behaviour policed by society and how do women internalise those expectations and limitations through self-surveillance?
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Hallsâs practice has relied on painting from life, memory, and photographs. Referencing everything from high art and philosophy to the
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was acquired for the permanent collection of the
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constantly and did it that way.â She moved near a former theatre in south London where she established her first studio.
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portrait of Katie
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for what became a major lockdown art project in the UK during the global Covid pandemic:
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Halls was commissioned to create the
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Describing herself as mainly self-taught, Hall took a foundation course in art at
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Portrait of Katie
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in conversation at her London studio for BBC Radio 4's Only
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In 2020, Halls became a founder-member and later
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Terina the Paper Tearer & Inferna the Human Torch
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Terina The Paper Tearer and
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582:"OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Roxana Halls"
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159:Whilst her
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710:Categories
409:References
370:Girl Table
285:a cappella
169:surrealism
86:Early life
642:16 August
119:zeitgeist
430:Rise Art
135:Boschâs
43:Movement
393:Carvery
255:Sitting
213:Carvery
64:Website
113:Career
53:Awards
59:Award
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