Celia Hempton

[Scroll down for French version / Veuillez trouver ci-dessous la version française]

Hempton has developed an extremely personal and recognizable language of portraiture, moving in and out of traditional forms of representation using repetition, speed and a sensibility for control. Born in England, she graduated at the Glasgow School of Art before coming to London, with a two-year gap spent in Rome at the British Academy. Technically, she masterfully swings from thick and violent brushstrokes, to flat, light surfaces. Instead of working with specific subjects, she seeks and stages situations that would trigger tension of some kind. Such conditions are always outside the artist’s control, at least to some degree. Color, shapes and marks convey an interest in power hierarchies that are a reflection of the relationships she creates when painting. What Hempton shows throughout her body of work is a profound bewilderment in the face of unrepeatable events. It is her way of understanding via painting. Each painting becomes an extension of the conditions of life, rather than their illustration. Following Dorothea von Hantelmann’s argument where “any visual artwork that in some formal, thematic, or structural way alludes to ideas of embodiment, enactment, staging, or theatre is called performative,” the question to be asked is not: is this work performative? But instead: what kind of experience is this work triggering? What kind of values, conventions, ideologies and meanings are inscribed in this situation?

One might be tempted to say that Celia Hempton’s work is voyeuristic. But this would be to remain on the threshold of her approach. Over the last ten years Celia Hempton has made a series of paintings of people (or their environment in the moment of the encounter) who use online video chat websites like Chat Random. The limits of this mode of communication are integral to the paintings. The composition of the image is chosen by the interlocutor’s desired camera angle, whilst each digital live stream is compressed and distorted depending on the user’s location and webcam. The length of the exchange (either person can choose to disappear at any time) also dictates the painted gesture. Her gaze is both activated and restricted, and in this way Celia Hempton’s process complicates the power dynamics traditionally encountered between a painter and model, between genders, and between social groups.

A new series of paintings shown together with these portraits comes from the incessant flow of films produced by surveillance cameras scattered all over the world. There is the entrance to an elevator in Russia, the back of a Tokyo restaurant, or a few leaves dancing in the middle of a courtyard in Taiwan. These videos could be disconcertingly banal, but it is their solitude that is troubling. They never quite emerge from their anonymity and refuse to fully reveal themselves to us. Once frozen in the painting, they oscillate between figuration and abstraction and try again to evade us. How much confidence can we place in an image? Are we sure of what is going on? More than testing boundaries, it would seem that Celia Hempton is challenging our

—Camille Bardin, English translation by Celia Hempton

*****

On pourrait être tenté·e de dire du travail de Celia Hempton qu’il est voyeuriste. Mais cela reviendrait à rester au seuil de sa démarche. Depuis une dizaine d’années, l’artiste choisi ses modèles parmi des internautes croisé·es çà et là sur des sites de discussions en ligne comme chatrandom. Elle laisse défiler les corps et les environnements jusqu’à ce que l’un d’eux l’interpelle et qu’elle décide de le portraiturer. Si bien que son poignée est davantage contraint qu’intrusif. L’artiste ne peut faire fi des limites. Il y a d’abord le cadre, restreint par une webcam de médiocre qualité qui propose une image compressée. Il y a aussi le temps imposé par celui qu’elle décide de peindre et qui peut à tout moment choisir de disparaitre. Son regard est donc réduit à un certain espace-temps et sa peinture soumise au bon vouloir de l’autre. En cela, le processus de Celia Hempton déjoue les dynamiques de pouvoir que l’on rencontre traditionnellement entre un peintre et son model, entre un homme et une femme, entre une occidentale et une personne qui ne l’est pas.

Après avoir peint une multitude de jambes écartés et de sexes avachis, Celia Hempton s’intéresse aujourd’hui à une nouvelle typologie d’images. Toutes proviennent de l’incessant flux de films produits par des caméras de surveillance disséminées aux quatre coins du monde. Il y a là l’entrée d’un ascenseur en Russie, plus loin l’arrière d’un restaurant tokyoïte, ou encore quelques feuilles qui dansent au milieu d’une cour à Taïwan. Ces vidéos pourraient être déconcertantes de banalité mais c’est eur solitude qui est troublante. Elles ne sortent jamais tout à fait de leur anonymat et refusent même de se révéler pleinement à nous. Une fois figée sur la toile, elles oscillent entre figuration et abstraction et tentent à nouveau de se dérober. Quelle confiance pouvons-nous accorder aux images ? Sommes-nous bien sûr·es de ce qui se trame ? Plus que les limites, il semblerait que ce sont nos certitudes que Celia Hempton chahute.

—Camille Bardin