Laudanum
Rachel Shannon

Press view: Friday 29 February 4-7pm
Private view: Friday 29 February 7-9pm
First Thursday: Thursday 6 March 7-9pm
1 March – 23 March 2008
Open every Saturday and Sunday 12-4pm Free admission

Press Release

During the Victorian era, the painkiller – Laudanum (opium mixed with alcohol), was widely regarded as safe treatment for many aliments – the highly addictive qualities were not understood fully. Traditionally a working-class medicine, Laudanum grew popular with the upper classes, and although Laudanum is now no longer a recreational drug, it became synonymous with Victorian Romanticism, largely helped by its famous users such as Byron, Shelly and The Moonstone author Wilkie Collins.

It is this tainted romanticism that Rachel Shannon explores in her new series of paintings Laudanum opening at the Gone Tomorrow Gallery on Saturday 1st of March. Laudanum will be Rachel Shannon’s second solo show at the gallery and continues from the series Night Thoughts.

Using brightly coloured marbled surfaces, Shannon’s paintings are a psychedelic reinterpretation of familiar painting cannons such as British and French Romanticism. The mausoleums of Monmartre are an artistic influence - depicting, with heightened sadness, the passing of a beloved artist - forever frozen with pallet in his hand. As are Victorian fairy paintings that blend narrative, melodrama with hallucinogenic imagery. It is not surprising that Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland is thought to have been inspired by Laudanum, and it is these sources that Shannon uses as a starting point to create her compositions.

In Shannon’s painting The Sylphs, a reclining man is comforted by semi-naked ethereal women. The figures are painted coming out of the marbled surface and surrounded by obscure creatures. The composition references 19th century narrative painting, but the subject combines contemporary styles of painting with the tragic glamour of addiction. There are parallels that can be drawn between modern contemporaries such as Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty, and that of the model of the tragic hero and heroine of the Victorian era. Shannon playfully examines our fascination and romanticism with such people.

Laudanum is a celebration of the romantic spirit. It reaffirms the ideological relevance of the Romantics with contemporary sensibilities and an appreciation of the mal du siecle once more.

-ENDS-

Hi-res images available. Please contact Maxine Shannon on 07986 350 943 for press enquiries and images.

Notes to Editors
• Rachel Shannon graduated Falmouth College of Art 2000 and at the Royal Academy 2004
• Exhibitions include: Acid Drops and Sugar Candy – Transition, The Assembly – Ragged School, Group – Pumphouse Gallery, Radical – Jerwood Space and at Gorge Polke Presents.
• Rachel Shannon has also featured in the following exhibitions at the Gone Tomorrow Gallery: Launch, Night Thoughts, Bunny Incinerator, and Durty Turkey.