Degree show paintings
Chloé Grimes-Biltis
Glasgow School of Art
My degree show featured a series of large-scale oil paintings depicting the Portuguese man o’ war, a beautiful sea creature carrying a lethal sting. It becomes both alluring and ambigious as the work explores the tensions between temptation and threat. In hyper-real detail, I exaggerated colour, translucency and wetness, transforming them into something seductive and otherworldly, arousing curisoity and a natural drive for desire within viewers. The paintings isolate the man o’ war against bare linen backgrounds, heightening its presence and encouraging close looking. Real sand covered the floor, letting viewers enter a surreal encounter and experience a sensory reaction dominated by the creatures' scale, inviting one to approach the man o' war while unaware of its true danger.