[dropcap style=”font-size:100px;color:#992211;”]H[/dropcap]ang-Up Gallery present Fags, Birds and a Couple of Guns, a retrospective dedicated to the work of Nancy Fouts.
Fouts, who passed away in April 2019, is best known for her distinctive sculptural works, which reconfigure commonplace objects and materials with a subversive and playful humour. Her work brings together these seemingly disconnected items, religious artefacts, creatures and symbols to create bizarre juxtapositions of the everyday, wickedly funny taxidermy sculptures, and even giving Old Master paintings a surreal twist.
Fouts described her approach to gleaning ideas as “beach-combing”, rediscovering the familiar with a perspective that she likened to childhood naivety. With fans including Banksy, Gavin Turk and Sir Peter Blake, the ‘modern-day surrealist’ was admired for her boundless enthusiasm and passion for disrupting the everyday. Curator James Putnam, who worked closely with the artist, comments: “Her deliciously infectious smile and dry wit made her a magnet for artists and curators of all ages, coupled with her talent for throwing unforgettable parties at her art-filled Camden house.”
Working closely with Fouts’ estate, the retrospective will feature work spanning several decades, including some of her best loved sculptures and framed works alongside unseen pieces from her converted vicarage home and studio space in Camden.
Fags, Birds and a Couple of Guns runs at Hang-up Gallery from 28 February – 24 April
Naila Scargill is the publisher and editor of horror journal Exquisite Terror. Holding a broad editorial background, she has worked with an eclectic variety of content, ranging from film and the counterculture, to political news and finance.
