Jessie Rawcliffe: Close the Door When You Go

Close the Door When You Go presents a new body of work by multidisciplinary artist and designer, Jessie Rawcliffe. Highlighting Rawcliffe’s ample skill with a fine brush, the exhibition showcases figurative paintings which set out to subtly challenge the historically submissive nature of women in portraiture. In allowing the subjects to assume the role of observer, viewer becomes the viewed. Their weary or challenging gazes imply a sense of interruption - your disruptive presence is, or is about to be, the cause of unwelcome annoyance. Hands features predominantly as absent minded self-pacifying gestures.

Rawcliffe takes elements of other design practices, such as aperture and close cropping from photography and translates this to paint. Her work uses contrasting techniques and textures, and surreal colour palettes to confuse our sense of what is real and create unease; making her portraiture seem less familiar.