AKT to Rebaudengo

The work is one of the fist where Avery introduces a new technique. On the classical surface with the tile/grid background that she has been working with the past year, Avery applies a matt white semitransparent rubber medium that she can draw in with her fingers while it is wtt. It is like a shower glass wall covered in fog that one can draw on. Avery is interested in the immediacy and directness of the process in contrast to the complex process of airbrush.

As you could also see in the work that was exhibited at Neu, Avery is also interested in painting only shadows or drawings of her iconographic figures. They are still present in the image but as projections rather than elaborate figures.

The title Sensory Deprivation Tank refers to a wellness application where a person floats in a lightless, soundproof tank filled with salt water at skin temperature. The tanks were initially developed for psychoanalytic research to deprive people of their sensory perception for their body and the environment. This corresponds with Avery’s tendency in recent works to let the bodies disappear or only have them show up as projections.

Formally I really like how the viewer is anticipated in the paining lurking over the edge of the pool into the water from the bottom left corner.