ANYA GALLACCIO | THE HOUSE OF FAIRY TALES
2017
Archival inkjet print on Somerset Satin Enhanced 330gsm with varnish
30 x 30cm
Edition of 25 plus 22 artist's proofs 
EDITION #10 OF 25
 
Anya Gallaccio creates site-specific, minimalist, epic installations, often working with organic matter, including chocolate, sugar, flowers and ice. Her use of organic materials results in natural processes of transformation and decay: her installations are unpredictable and embrace the chaos of nature. The pleasurable start of an exhibition, with the scent of flowers or chocolate, inevitably becomes increasingly unpleasant over time. Her work challenges the traditional notion that an art object or sculpture should be a monument within a gallery. Instead her work lives through the memory of those that see and experience it — or is in the concept of the artwork itself.
 
For the Portfolio the artist has compressed tulips into a frozen block, packed with individual blooms — a musing on value and rarity as specimens. The colour of the petals was heightened and the flowers became soluble, like a lollipop leaking its colour, as if the bleed of the pigment from the flowers was used to make the print. Freezing is a way of slowing down decay, stabilising a material and keeping its agency.