HEIDI YARDLEY EXHIBITION REVIEWED BY CHRISTOPHER HEATHCOTE

Heidi Yardley’s brief, if attention catching show at the Melbourne Art Fair continues to run for an additional fortnight over in Nicholas Thompson Gallery. Yardley has produced twelve large erotic paintings of female nudes which, in a flamboyant application of visual references, allude to the high Surrealism of Paul Delvaux, Meret Oppenheim and Man Ray.

Each piece is weighted with suitably Surreal symbolism. A nude may have musical sound holes along her limbs, as if she can be played like an instrument (vulnerable personality?); or the eye sockets in a figure’s face are quite empty, revealing a shadowy hollowness inside (displaced ego?). Of course, the artist makes lavish use of hair, furs and exotic feathers, gathering them in a Freudian-like manner to allude to genital hair. Instead of a full face we see thick feathers or massed curly hair surrounding a mouth with plump red lips.(illus. below) All ‘He’ sees when looking at ‘Her’ is sexual possibility. Other pieces hint of the occult by including ancient Egyptian symbols either hovering in air or scarred in the nude’s skin.

Poses in several pieces recall publicity photographs for movies, although Yardley’s oils are streets ahead. As the modelling of flesh and hair indicates, the artist well knows how to draw from the life model, bringing that skill to bear in each canvas. Fans of Surrealism will find much here to muse over.