Bali-based American artist Ashley Bickerton has long painted tropical paradise inhabited by corrupt, non-idyllic characters. Now, his nubile female stock character has morphed into a brightly made-up crone with a snaking tongue and necklaces of trash. As disturbing as she is, it’s a bold new direction for Bickerton, who ups the ante with even stronger contrasts between attraction and repulsion. (At Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side space through Oct 26th).
Ashley Bickerton, MV1, aluminum, oil and acrylic paint, hair, cement, 2013 (foreground). Ashley Bickerton, m-DNA_eve1, oil and acrylic on digital print on wood, 2013 (background).
