An Audience with the Queen
The sharp satire of Funk’s work has now gone to a topic usually highly insulated in terms of imagery. Royalty in Europe depends more and more on image to remain royal in the absence of more traditional means of power. This is like the effect of a museum on objects, it confers status as it removes them from the process and context of history.
The other taboo which is broken here is that around old age and the rituals of its decay. The stagy setting and the banal activities including the palpable fleshiness of the couple, is as strong as the withering pictures of Hogarth, and is indeed stronger than caricature as it does not depend on exaggeration or distortion, but a precisely imagined reality which traditional image making kept very purposely at bay.
This suggests a strange pictorial iconoclasm, where pictures are used to attack imagery in favour of another communication.
PATRICK E. HEALY
AN AUDIENCE WITH THE QUEEN
oil on canvas
110 x 143.2 cm
Winner of the Thames & Hudson
Pictureworks Prize
Her images will not serve for distraction.
They need attention and thought.
They are there to confront and be confronted.
Ses images ne seront pas à distraire.
Ils ont besoin de la réflexion et de la pensée. Ils sont là pour faire face
et pour être confronté.
PATRICK E. HEALY
PAINTINGS ON ARTISAN PAPER
MIA FUNK
INSIDE THE ARTIST’S STUDIO
essay by Professor Patrick E. Healy
