Candice Tripp At Black Rat Projects

South African born Candice Tripp brings her disarming new show – ‘Petit Mal’ – to Black Rat on July 26. Exploring themes of normality, insanity, order, disorder and the dark innocence of childhood ‘Petit Mal’ envisions Tripp’s perception of infant ‘petit mal’ syndrome as “a brief interruption of consciousness”.

Tripp’s fascination with horror infuses all her works and yet in their fairytale-like portrayal these works play upon suggested ideas of inherent or hidden dangers within the landscape. Utilising the dichotomy between her childish subjects and the distinctly adult themes which they portray, Tripp provocatively questions the role which both ‘adult’ and ‘child’ play within those darker areas of the social psyche; she explains:

"While I was painting, I kept thinking about a small town full of young, isolated inhabitants and how every place, to a degree, has “a way” of doing things, a way which is rarely interrupted until an outsider witnesses and draws attention to it

I found myself thinking a lot about an interruption of consciousness - in the sense of it occurring in a group. I tend to paint a fraction of a story- often either prelude or aftermath – and so I ended up focusing on fictitious (often awkward social) scenarios occurring in a town that is unaware of its single-minded lapse in judgement; Cult-like. The idea being that children who don’t outgrow it, will fall victim to it. "

At once enchanting and disorientating, fantastical and freakish, Petit Mal takes the viewer into a child’s world full of adult intent. Running from July 27 to August 18 at Black Rat Gallery Shoreditch, come and witness Tripp’s bewitched/ brainwashed little children as they hover between the cradle and the grave.

Show opens to the public from July 26 to August 18.
Private view July 26 from 6-9. Please email info@blackrat.com to RSVP

Black Rat Projects, through Cargo Garden, Arch 461, 83 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3AY.