Girl on a trapeze
The gaze is focused on a young girl performing high above an admiring crowd. She moves with the velocity and confidence of youth, exhilarated by the danger of the act. “Girl on a trapeze” deliberately references paintings like Jean-Honoré Fragonard's "Happy hazards of the swing"; Edgar Degas "Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando"; and Édouard Manet’s "Bar at the Folies-Bergère" where the young female figure displays a flourishing sensuality, an elegant eroticism. As Degas said of his Miss La La: “She is fully alive and radiates strength and beauty”. "Girl on a trapeze" is part of my series on the lost art of circus performance, the transience of travelling carnivals and the sinister side of clowns gone wrong.
- Subject Matter: Figuration
- Collections: Welcome to the circus