Camille Henrot, the French artist known for her grand explorations of the universe and human origins, has turned inward for her latest exhibition. Titled 'Don’t', the show at The Perimeter in London presents a more personal and introspective body of work, moving away from the hypercomplex installations that won her the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale.
The exhibition features two distinct series: layered digital paintings and explicit drawings on paper. The paintings, part of a series called 'Dos and Don’ts', blend screenshots, collaged paper, and brushstrokes, creating a chaotic fusion of digital and analogue elements. Error messages, etiquette guide pages, and angry pen marks overlay personal items like photos of her husband and children, an X-ray of her wrist, and a bill for egg storage, offering a glimpse into her private life and struggles with digital overload.
In contrast, the drawings are unapologetically raw, depicting mythical hybrid creatures engaged in sexual acts. Testicles with faces, a fox licking a phallus, and women with penises populate these surreal scenes, forming what the artist describes as a sexual psychodrama. These works explore private desires and the mundane, raunchy moments of everyday life.
While Henrot's latest works may lack the ambition of her earlier installations and films, they serve a different purpose: examining what remains when grand gestures are stripped away. The answer, for Henrot, is the tentative, awkward, loving, and boring stuff of daily existence, presented with unflinching honesty.
