Torrid explores the depiction of human embodiment in a moment of extremity. Based on video footage filmed by ISIS from the Camp Speicher massacre of 2014, where nearly 2,000 young army cadets were kidnapped and executed, I have freeze-framed moving images and cropped and selected areas to paint, drawing out moments of interaction. Painted with ink on canvas, the medium flows and washes from one body to the next, connecting the men depicted. I allow for a certain messiness in technique - drips and splashes of paint and water - which for me are reflective of a human messiness and imperfection. The colours have faded in the light over time, giving the painting a bleached-out appearance, reminiscent of the over-exposed video footage of the source material. Ultimately, each painting is an attempt to understand and communicate a sense of ambiguity in a moment of extremity: the tumultuousness of the crowd alongside an eerie stillness and expectancy; a sense of comfort in touch and an uncomfortable abutting of bodies; moments of apparent resignation and resistance; the gap between the reality of the experience itself and what can be understood by the viewer once filtered through digital, and then physical media.
2021
ink on canvas
150.0 x 160.0cm
IP2129
Text & images © Maddie Yuille
Portrait of Maddie Yuille by Victoire Inchauspé
Portrait of Maddie Yuille by Victoire Inchauspé
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Torrid by Maddie Yuille
The Ingram Prize 2021
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