Page 33 - Art Almanac (February 2020)

Each of the many expressive modes to which Rayment refers appear in this exhibition in one form
or another, adding credence to Goddard’s claim that: ‘We were drawn to the outrageous, and
challenging, but above all, art that treats the body with a joyful exuberance and defiant insolence.’
Gerwyn Davies’ highly contrived photographs are one example, achieving, to stay with Goddard,
both ‘playful self-transformation’ and ‘parody, artifice and excess of a camp sensibility’. Hair,
feet and leather-fetish are other recurring motifs – in works by Dita Gambiro, Cop Shiva, John
Pastoriza-Piñol; these thrive in pleasure’s borderlands, enjoyable for some, abject to others. And it
is at these borders that certain works rush the senses, pushing out – for a moment – what pleasure
is meant to be, to penetrate instead with the messiness of what pleasure truly is.

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