About the work

This work is one of a series drawn from ex-voto paintings, where the state of disrepair in the object meets the tragedy depicted halfway to form a kind of double jeopardy. Will the individual’s demise ultimately be down to the runaway carriage or the impact of woodworm upon the object? The series attempts to address the feelings of powerlessness we are all enduring within our current political circumstances.

Date and country of birth

1970, US

About the artist

Born Baytown, Kelly Chorpening lives and works in London. Graduated from BFA Cleveland Institute of Art (1993), and MFA Hunter College and City University of New York (1995).

In her drawings, the distinction between object and image is often blurred by presenting them sculpturally. As objects, they teeter on the edge of preservation or destruction due to their overall design: paper mounted to industrially cut and rolled steel. The drawings defy gravity as unprotected drawn surface thrust into social space, and this tension between vulnerability and strength is furthered by the depiction of processes of aging and neglect upon a given subject. Drawing the appearance of these forces becomes a means of addressing the status of these objects, both physically and culturally, and finding expression for precarious conditions in life more generally.

Selected exhibitions include A History of Drawing, Camberwell Space, London (2018); Immaterial Statements, Horatio Jr., London (2016); Between Thought and Space, Dilston Grove, London (2015); Vertigo Before Words, Salon am Hof, Vienna (2007); Suspended Animation, Shillam Smith, London (2006).

Awards and residencies include Jerwood Drawing Prize (2016); Derwent Art Prize (2016, 2014); Phantom Limn, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh (2017); and Punk and Sheep, Canary Wharf, London (2014).