Herakut at Camp Barbossa Gallery

Herakut at Camp Barbossa Gallery

05 December, 2008
by: Katuschka

German design duo, Herakut, have a blink and you'll miss it new show at Covent Garden's Camp Barbossa Gallery this month. It's a dirgy, poetic rabbit hole of lost souls and kitchen-sink nymphs entitled Dirty Laundry, the title coming from an image of a young girl matter-of-factly hanging up her bunny ears and breasts to dry.

On display is a selection of striking yet subtle paintings and some mixed-media sculpture, all characterised by an edgy 'street' feel. Herakut (the combined names of graffiti artists Hera and Akut) retain this effect by mixing photorealist portraiture with spray paint backgrounds and bodies to add a scratchier, unfinished taint to the work.

The exhibition is populated with sad-eyed children and animal costumes, as well as feral animals like dogs, foxes, wolves and rats. The artists draw comparisons between these wretched predators and the children who wear their skins: Hood Rats is a self-explanatory pun, Too Cute shows a rabbit-headed girl watched voraciously by a wolf, and Sisters sees two young girls in fox hats huddling naked like an abandoned litter. These little touches emphasize the playfulness and vulnerability of their subjects, who aren't just wearing their hearts on their sleeves but who are also displaying a few good years in therapy and juvenile detention on their heads.

If you're thinking that Herakut sound like depressing woe-mongers whose imagery borders on exploitation, then you'd be right to a certain extent: their vision is more than a little Railway Children 2.0. However, when you take into account Herakut's graffiti background, their skill seems to be all the more sensational; these stencillers are knocking Banksy out of the water. Their devastatingly beautiful pieces easily rub shoulders with fine art, and translate well to a gallery show (although to ensure the punters aren't too far out of their comfort zone Camp Barbossa is trussed up like a dingy, paint-splattered public toilet).

Tragic these images may be then, but they are also hopeful and intimate, like watching a nature documentary full of quivering, disturbed creatures. Pictures such as For you I'd do… show their subjects accepting their fates with a poignant dignity and strength. Herakut's children are the survivors of a society coming apart at the seams, like twisted Margaret Keane portraits.

Herakut's work has been described as 'schizophrenic': their method of working involves taking it in turns to layer backgrounds, faces and animal costumes. Often one artist will not know how the other is going to interpret an aspect of the piece and this produces erratic yet unique images. It's an interesting way to develop a piece and the scope for artistic autonomy undoubtedly explains why Herakut are so successful. There's not one overwhelming ego, simply two artists who complement each other well.

Dirty Laundry is not necessarily ground breaking: the use of appealing young children in dark situations is readily available in a certain vein of graduate artists, who are chasing an easily replicated fey aesthetic for the J.T Leroy market. But it does represent a strong progressive body of work for the artists who will undoubtedly be moving out of the ranks of affordable art work soon. Grimy, sexy, a little bit sad and a whole lot wrong, this is a fantastic chance to see Herakut before they decide to move underground again, or before they are enlisted to design for Converse and rather lose their cool.

Keen for more? See more about:

London Art
London Exhibitions
London Events

Katuschka