Galina Munroe | Love me till i’m me again

갈리나 먼로 | Love me till i’m me again

She feels deeply, she feels tenderly, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, varnish, 210 x 180 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and JARILAGER Gallery.

 

British-French painter Galina Munroe (b. 1993) has become known for her uniquely recognisable, colourful, and ebullient compositions of floral arrangements that at first glance appear aesthetically simplistic but, on closer inspection, are revealed to be subtle meditations on the nature of paint and the history of art made by women. In 2014, Munroe received her undergraduate degree from the European Academy of Art in Brittany, and two years later, she earned her graduate degree from Central Saint Martins in London. Her exuberant art pieces draw upon the ‘ghost’ of Western feminine and domestic art traditions, engaging with themes of decoration, beauty, sentimentality, empathy, and pleasure – elements decisively overshadowed by the dominant narrative of male painters and their more openly powerful subjects.

 

The strength of Munroe’s paintings is that they are not merely a testimony to the wrongs suffered by women artists throughout history. Her tale is about something much larger than grievance. There is a vein of optimistic rebellion that invites us to engage with alternative modes of being. Love me till i’m me again is an exhibition focusing on the small intentions of gifting flowers and their quiet power to communicate. At a time when there is a widespread hunger for new ways of inhabiting the planet, gestures of holding and sharing flowers not only bring long-overdue recognition to women’s craft and decorative art, but also encourage a different kind of attunement to the world and our place in it, one that is based on love, generosity, caring hands, and consideration.

 

Let July be July, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, varnish, 180 x 160 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and JARILAGER Gallery.

 

Flowers are a motif that Munroe returns to time and again, drawn by their beauty and the pleasure she finds in painting them. However, a significant evolution can be observed from her earlier creations, where formal concerns about colour, composition, and movement were paramount, to the narrative approach seen in her current works. Now, she uses the symbolism of flowers to tell stories, to send out messages, to speak with her audience. The energy remains the same, but it has shifted outwards. ‘My paintings are love letters to the world,’ she says, ‘sometimes joyful, sometimes melancholic, written in blossomy colours and forms.’ She traffics in the language of flowers as if it were her own voice – uncontrived, gentle, yet perfectly expressive. Sunflowers whisper her brightest hopes; roses and tulips, her sanguine desires; bluebells, her daydreams.

For all the art historical invocations in Munroe’s new work, from Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Cassatt to Georgia O’Keefe and Hilma af Klimt, one of the precedents might be most resonant and haunting because working unconsciously: Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Eve. Munroe revealed that it was only after completing love me till i’m me again – the painting that lends its name to the exhibition – that she realised the hand in her canvas, tenderly open with a daisy in its palm, strikingly echoed the gesture of Eve offering the forbidden apple to Adam in Cranach’s 16th-century masterpiece. The hand is so soft and the gesture so immaculate that viewers might even reconsider the menacing reputation of Eve’s gift. Anyway, the centrality of the hand’s gesture here prompts a double consideration. First, hands, much like flowers, speak quietly, but powerfully; they can provide an artist with a rich and versatile visual vocabulary to display feelings, intentions, and secret meanings. Second, hands are likely to play an increasingly dominant role in Munroe’s work. It is easy to imagine her navigating through the language of gestures just as she mastered the language of flowers.

 

‘I have begun to look at my works as a form of protesting against the brutality we witness persistently in our daily life. The darker our life becomes, the lighter my paintings must appear,’ states Munroe. When everything seems to fall apart, we need more patience, more grace. We need more love letters – crafted with mastery, subtly scented with the fragrances of our inner garden. Is all of this inevitably feminine, after all? One thing is certain: Munroe suggests that what the world truly calls for is not another eulogy to power, but a new, life-affirming politics of softness.

 

Sunflowers and acorns, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, varnish, 180 x 160 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and JARILAGER Gallery.

 

영국-프랑스 화가 갈리나 먼로(1993년생)는 독특하게 인식되는 다채롭고 활기찬 꽃다발 구성을 통해 유명해졌습니다. 이 작품들은 처음에는 미학적으로 단순해 보이지만, 자세히 들여다보면 여성들이 만들어온 예술의 역사와 그림의 본질에 대한 미묘한명상임이 드러납니다. 2014년 먼로는 브리타니의 유럽 예술 아카데미에서 학사 학위를 받았고, 2년 후 런던의 센트럴 세인트마틴스에서 석사 학위를 취득했습니다. 그녀의 열정적인 예술 작품들은 서양 여성성과 가정 예술 전통의 ‘유령’에 의지하여 장식, 아름다움, 감상, 공감, 기쁨과 같은 주제들을 다루며, 이는 남성 화가들의 더 강렬한 주제로 인해 결정적으로 가려졌던 요소들입니다.

 

먼로의 그림의 강점은 그것들이 단순히 역사를 통틀어 여성 예술가들이 겪은 불의를 증언하는 데 그치지 않는다는 점에 있습니다. 그녀의 이야기는 불만보다 훨씬 더 큰 것을 다루고 있습니다. 낙관적인 반항의 기운이 있으며, 이는 우리가 대안적인 존재방식을 모색하도록 초대합니다. Love me till I’m me again은 꽃을 선물하는 작은 의도와 그 조용한 소통의 힘에 초점을 맞춘 전시입니다. 우리가 이 행성을 새로운 방식으로 살아가고자 하는 욕구가 널리 퍼진 지금, 꽃을 주고받는 제스처는 여성의 공예와 장식 예술에 오랜 시간 동안 미뤄왔던 인정을 가져다줄 뿐만 아니라, 사랑, 관대함, 돌보는 손길, 배려에 기반한 세상과 우리자리에 대한 새로운 감각을 장려합니다.

 

꽃은 먼로가 그 아름다움과 그림을 그릴 때 느끼는 기쁨에 이끌려 반복해서 돌아가는 모티브입니다. 그러나 그녀의 초기 작품에서 색상, 구성, 움직임에 대한 형식적인 관심이 중요했던 것과는 달리, 현재 작품에서는 이야기하는 접근 방식으로의 중요한 진화를 관찰할 수 있습니다. 이제 그녀는 꽃의 상징성을 사용해 이야기를 전하고, 메시지를 보내며, 청중과 소통합니다. 에너지는여전히 같지만, 외부로 향하고 있습니다. ‘내 그림은 세상에 보내는 연애 편지예요,’라고 그녀는 말합니다. ‘때로는 기쁘고, 때로는 우울한, 꽃이 만개한 색과 형태로 쓰여진 편지들이죠.’ 그녀는 꽃의 언어를 마치 자신의 목소리처럼 다룹니다 – 꾸밈없고 부드러우며, 완벽하게 표현력이 있는. 해바라기는 그녀의 가장 밝은 희망을 속삭이고, 장미와 튤립은 그녀의 낙관적인 욕망을, 종달새는 그녀의 몽상을 속삭입니다.

먼로의 새로운 작업에는 아르테미시아 젠틸레스키, 메리 커샛, 조지아 오키프, 힐마 아프 클린트 등 미술사적인 소환이 담겨 있지만, 무의식적으로 작동했기 때문에 가장 공감되고 마음에 남는 전례는 루카스 크라나흐 장로의 이브일 것입니다. 먼로는 Love me till I’m me again – 전시의 이름을 딴 그림 – 을 완성한 후에야 자신의 캔버스에 있는 손이 손바닥에 데이지를 들고 있는 모습이 크라나흐의 16세기 걸작에서 이브가 아담에게 금단의 사과를 건네는 제스처와 놀랍도록 유사하다는 것을 깨달았다고 밝혔습니다. 손은 너무 부드럽고 제스처는 너무 완벽해서 관객들은 이브의 선물이 가진 위협적인 평판을 재고하게 될지도 모릅니다. 어쨌든 이곳에서 손의 제스처가 중심에 있는 것은 두 가지 고려를 요구합니다. 첫째, 손은 꽃처럼 조용하지만 강력하게 말합니다; 그것들은 감정, 의도, 그리고 비밀스러운 의미를 표현할 수 있는 풍부하고 다양한 시각적 어휘를 예술가에게 제공합니다. 둘째, 손은 먼로의 작품에서 점점 더 중요한 역할을 하게 될 가능성이 높습니다. 그녀가 꽃의 언어를 마스터한 것처럼 제스처의 언어를 통해 탐색하는 모습을 상상하기는 어렵지 않습니다.

 

‘나는 내 작품을 우리가 일상에서 끊임없이 목격하는 잔인함에 대한 항의의 한 형태로 보기 시작했습니다. 우리의 삶이 어두워질수록, 내 그림은 더 밝아져야 합니다,’라고 먼로는 말합니다. 모든 것이 무너지는 것처럼 보일 때, 우리는 더 많은 인내, 더 많은 은총이 필요합니다. 우리는 내면의 정원의 향기를 은은하게 담은, 숙련된 솜씨로 만들어진 더 많은 연애 편지가 필요합니다. 이 모든 것이 결국 필연적으로 여성스러운 것일까요? 확실한 것은 먼로가 세상이 진정으로 요구하는 것은 또 하나의 권력에 대한 송가가 아니라, 새로운, 생명을 affirm하는 부드러움의 정치라고 제안한다는 것입니다.

 

The lovers gift, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, varnish, 180 x 160 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and JARILAGER Gallery.

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