Criminology

The innocuous becomes the iniquitous in Barry Reigate’s large-scale painting Criminology, 2005. Against a fairytale blue sky with pink-blushed clouds, a monstrous concoction of bulbous body parts forms into a hyper-sexualised, floating organ. Gargantuan breasts sprout rosy nipples, which in turn transmute into protruding phalluses. Lecherous hands creep out from the crevices, probing, pinching and stroking everything they come into contact with. Amongst them are the white gloved hands synonymous with Mickey Mouse, and a couple of dangling candy canes – the quintessence of childhood delight – which have morphed into sinister groping hooks. The innocent is irrevocably tarnished as the viewer is plunged into Reigate’s twisted and sordid cartoon world. The artist first learnt to draw cartoons as a child when visiting his father in prison: ‘my father would try to entertain me through drawing popular imagery such as King Kong, or Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,’ Reigate recalls. ‘So there is this dysfunction already in my circuit, in relation to my artistic introduction, drawing associated with punishment and freedom.’ Both humorous and perverse, Criminology sardonically hints at the paradoxes, discrepancies and hypocrisies of contemporary life.