For the Present Future section of Artissima 2019 Dürst Britt & Mayhew is proud to present a solo exhibition by young female artist Puck Verkade, comprising of a video installation, a large wall drawing and a series of watercolours.
Verkade’s new video installation ‘Plague’ imagines eerie parallels between ecological and mental breakdown. Narrated by a fly that fantasises about human extermination, surreal analogies between the tormented psyche and the exploited Earth unfold, climaxing in a Kafkaesque metamorphosis between a housewife and a housefly.
Verkade’s moving image work reconsiders the archetypes and narratives that shape human experience and social structures. Delivered with humour and a distinct taste for the absurd, her videos tell stories from alternative perspectives, making space for the unheard and under-represented. Shifting between the different visual modes of stop motion animation, green screen and direct to camera performance, her fast paced montages have the sensation of a moving collage; a dense juxtaposition of layered images and sounds in a cartoon reality.
Puck Verkade (b. 1987, The Netherlands, lives and works in London) received her BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and completed an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, London in 2017. Her work has been shown internationally at amongst others: Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2019; Schimmel Projects Dresden Art Centre, Dresden, 2019; Forde, Geneva, 2019; LISTE, Basel, 2018; ARCO Lisboa, Lisbon, 2018; SUNDAY, London, 2017; Berlin Feminist Film Festival, Berlin, 2016; LOOP, Barcelona, 2015 and Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 2013. She was 2017-2018 resident artist at Sarabande The Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation. Verkade’s work is held in private and public collections, including the Zabludowicz Collection in London and the AKZO Nobel Art Foundation in Amsterdam.
