Avery Singer has attracted critical acclaim for her highly original visual vocabulary, achieved through an application of industrial automation, three-dimensional computer modelling and traditional painting techniques. The artist’s complex process...
Avery Singer has attracted critical acclaim for her highly original visual vocabulary, achieved through an application of industrial automation, three-dimensional computer modelling and traditional painting techniques. The artist’s complex process of layering begins with finely primed, gessoed canvas, onto which images are projected before being methodically developed with airbrushed acrylic paint and liquid rubber. The rubber is used as masking solution in many of Singer’s paintings, allowing parts of her imagery to be visibly and vigorously removed, effectively unveiling the complex dimensionality that constitutes the numerous layers of each work. Through these diverse methods, Singer continues to expand the limits of the medium, and blur the lines between digital and analogue, abstraction and figuration, historical and contemporary narratives.
In early 2020, Singer introduced a handful of new characters within a contemporary dive bar, including Maximilien de Robespierre and a female figure who attempts his assassination. Inspired by the inclusion of Robespierre within the video game Assassin’s Creed, Singer re-appropriates the historical figure, reshaping the narrative of the French revolutionary and outlaw to exist amidst pop culture references. For her, Robespierre became an unconscious sublimation of political and social frustrations, including with the presidency of Donald Trump, male domination and the malignant narcissism of the artist. The imaginary realm of 3D software became the setting for a hyper-violent fantasy against the ruthless historical figure. In ‘Sculptor & Robespierre’ (2021), Singer overlays the faces of her titular subjects, increasingly bloodied, battered and scarred, taking their last drink before death from a White Claw Hard Seltzer. The portrait is made manifest through layers of varying textures and the examination of internet iconography, such as the recurring Wojak meme and a military drone. In the Robespierre series, Singer engages broader themes of destruction and disconnection from reality through the allusions to inebriation and the militarization of United States politics.