Marcus Cope is a London-based painter whose work transforms personal memories into evocative, dreamlike compositions. Drawing on themes of memory, family and the subconscious, Cope creates contemporary mythologies in which familiar figures and objects are reimagined in uncanny and surreal ways. In his hands, childhood bedrooms become shadowy stages for struggle and transformation, flowers metamorphose into mysterious pools, and creatures emerge from fragments of experience.

“Cope is one of my favourite painters, and this small work lacks none of his usual bravura. I frankly love it. It is simultaneously terrifying and seductive, as though something historical, religious or mythical is unfolding before our eyes. Like a modern-day William Blake, Cope presents us with a poetic and nightmarish vision. The huge flaming mouth is truly terrifying, while the tiny man and his shadow, head bowed, shuffle past this spectacle, one imagines, in absolute fear.

The possibilities are endless, and it is also the quality of the paint that is so arresting: gorgeous, sparkling and desirable. The back of the painting is great too. It makes you want one of his big ones.”

View Marcus's work in the Sound & Vision auction

www.marcuscope.co.uk

@marcus.cope

Copperwhite’s work investigates the relationship between memory, perception and painting. Taking inspiration from the world around her, she draws on a vast lexicon of signs and symbols that we all see everyday and and reimagines them in a unique, singular personal way. Layering paint, then scraping away to reveal ghostly traces of what might have been. Her paintings create space and tension, through a rigorous process of balancing thoughts and images from the conscious and subconscious mind.

“My only abstract choice from the group. It must be difficult to create tiny gestural abstractions (just imagine the arm movements reduced to miniature gestures), but this one works beautifully.

At first I hadn’t looked at the title, and simply enjoyed the painterliness, the messiness and the colours. Somehow, she manages to contain the energy of a much larger work within this small space. Great globs of paint, scratched surfaces and stretched, merged colours all contribute to a wonderfully pleasing composition.

I thought of Jasper Johns’s flags and Howard Hodgkin’s saturated colour paintings. Then I read the title, ‘Deconstruction of a Flower’, and thought, OK, I get it. But it is the messiness that really works here. A little gem-like painting that shines.”

View Diana's work in the Sound & Vision auction

www.dianacopperwhite.net

@dianacopperwhite

Abigail McGinley (b. 1999) is a painter living and working in London. McGinley’s practice is grounded in the examination of the tension between concealment and revelation and the material reality of paint and surface. Employing the body as a site of sensorial reflection, she investigates the body as both parasite and host - a metaphor for the fluctuating states of painting itself. This relationship, oscillating between activity and passivity, autonomy and dependence has informed a deliberately nonsensical continuum through which she refines her personal lexicon of form and meaning.

“A nice, sexy little painting, or should I say spiritual? I’m not sure whether the artist intended it, but this work seems to occupy that strange place in religious painting somewhere between eroticism and piety.

It made me think of the Powell and Pressburger film about errant nuns in the Himalayas, ‘Black Narcissus’ (1947), and Bernini’s great sculpture ‘The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’ (1652). Both explore the relationship between profound devotion and sexuality, something I feel is evident here, although I could be wrong.

The monochrome palette and thin application of paint create this metallic creature, not quite human, yet still beautiful and iconic. The simple white star is necessary to illuminate her face, but this remains a dark painting. Dark paintings can express a certain gravitas and atmosphere that I particularly enjoy.”

View Abigail's work in the Sound & Vision auction

www.abigailmcginley.com

@abigaillmcg

Matt Bollinger’s work centers on working-class, midwestern American people, often set in Holmes, Missouri, a fictional town drawn from upstate New York, where he lives, and Missouri, where he grew up. Across painting and stop-motion animations, Bollinger’s work tells the stories of people composited from family and first-hand experience - contractors, retail workers, road crews, parents, and athletes. Rooted in Missouri and the Ozarks, his work explores small-town America, working life, family, and masculinity.

“A really good painting of a young woman, emotionally charged yet subtle. His style is accomplished but interesting, and the pink shadows work particularly well, playing with our notions of what we are actually able to see and what we merely imagine we see.

There is some wonderful eye-brain trickery at work here and, quite simply, some very good painting.”

View Matt's work in the Sound & Vision auction

mattbollinger.com

@mattlbollinger