Annual Leave is Slippery Whilst the Floor is Wet

  • Feeling stuck on the production line of city life, the old master is leaving her shift at the culture factory, where she makes paint in huge metal vats. On the journey home, she gets caught in the rain. She stops and thinks – I need a holiday! 
    Looking for a painterly retreat, she packs a bag of carefully curated clothes and accessories she found only yesterday on eBay and Vinted, and jets away to the Loire Valley in France, tried and tested by her old master peers. 
    Now, how best to satisfy that restless feeling she can’t quite shake? Scouring Grindr for a French husband, TikTok doomscrolling, telling herself she’s fine, napping half-heartedly, flat on the grass, fully-clothed… If only she could just let go! The staged sunlight overhead is blinding, she remarks.
    Desperate to feel something, and for respite from her thoughts, her bank account and her excessive ambition, she rushes towards the river like it’s an exclusive masterclass about a new manifestation technique. She is very good at rushing. Her long, luscious, three-metre synthetic wig billows behind her as she trips over herself – again and again – down the embankment. 
    The muddy pathway slips and slides beneath her boots, and she falls flat on her makeshift Brazilian butt lift. If only she’d seen the cautioning sign propped up at the river’s edge: Attention: glissant lorsqu’il est mouillé.
    Like in her favourite painting that Delaroche finished in 1833 of Lady Jane Grey, who is seen being led to her execution, the ego of the older master dies. Tumbling awkwardly into the water, she floats downstream. She finds herself eyes-closed – then… Smiling, entering her characterful body. She texts me later that she's not felt this way since she was a young girl in medieval times, 1516 to be exact, the last time she was in France. She sees clearly once more.
    She dries off by a fire she lights with her paintbrushes, throws her wristwatches into the water, and spends the rest of her nights by torchlight, watching Pina Bausch’s Vollmond on YouTube. By day, she plays in the water with her holiday romance, the version of herself she’d like to be, the person who has a lust for life, the person who rests, relaxes and leans into their own pleasure. Soaking wet, she is finally free!
    – Will Maddrell, October 2024
     

    General Assembly is pleased to present Will Maddrell’s first international solo presentation, Annual Leave Is Slippery Whilst The Floor Is Wet. The works in this exhibition were made as part of General Assembly’s summer residency programme in the Loire Valley, France, as well as at Maddrell’s studio in London. Maddrell utilised their time in the Loire to deepen their performance art practice, and the connection between this to their paintings. Taking inspiration from the Loire Valley’s rich history as a haven for artists, Maddrell creates a character that embodies this tradition: an old master painter who has come to the region for annual leave. Through this character, Maddrell explores rest, relaxation and pleasure and the relationships of these to creative labour.

    Depictions of water are a recurring metaphor in Maddrell’s work, and indeed the works in this exhibition. The artist takes inspiration from water in pastoral scenes, as reflected in ‘Old Master Performance Artists Throwing Buckets of Water/Paint at One Another’, as well as where it plays an incidental or implied role, such as in ‘Attention: Glissant Lorsqu’il est Mouillé (Caution: Wet Floor)’. For Maddrell, water’s mutability bears a direct relation to the traits that they are exploring through the performance art character. 

    There is also an intellectual slip that is occurring. Just as the physical body can fall, old ideas and self-conceptions are also vulnerable to a slippery floor. The character in these works takes respite from a busy life, but also from ego-driven modes of living that hinder true connection to one’s self. Old ideas slip away, and new ones begin to form.

    For Maddrell, a key to this physical and intellectual freedom is a painter’s most vital tool: the brush. In a series of intimate paintings, the artist depicts these tools veiled under a sheet of silk, or aflame in the grass as in the painting ‘In Full Focus: Oops! We Can’t Find What You are Looking For...404 Error!’. Maddrell’s paintbrush compositions are sensuous and energetic. The artist’s decision to elevate the artist’s tools reveals a reverence for the creative process, and a deep consideration for the responsibilities of an image maker. 

    It is with the paintbrush that Maddrell can embody the old master character. The paintbrush allows the artist to translate scenes from their mind’s eye to an image on canvas. But more than the image, it is the knowledge and wisdom of the old master that become key guides for the artist. This rendering of the old master teaches Maddrell the importance of physical and intellectual openness. The visual representation becomes a physical sensation. Maddrell is creating the image, but also becoming it.

  • Works

    • Will Maddrell, Old Master on Annual Leave, 2024
      Will Maddrell, Old Master on Annual Leave, 2024 Sold
    • Will Maddrell, In full focus: Oops! We Can't Find What You are Looking For... 404 Error!, 2024
      Will Maddrell, In full focus: Oops! We Can't Find What You are Looking For... 404 Error!, 2024
    • Will Maddrell, Rhythms of Production and Rest; Command, Copy, Paste (Study for a Painting), 2024
      Will Maddrell, Rhythms of Production and Rest; Command, Copy, Paste (Study for a Painting), 2024
    • Will Maddrell, "Omission!" Laughed the Unrealistic Narrator, Veiled in Faux Silk, 2024
      Will Maddrell, "Omission!" Laughed the Unrealistic Narrator, Veiled in Faux Silk, 2024
    • Will Maddrell, Attention: Glissant Lorsqu'il est Mouillé (Caution: Wet Floor), 2024
      Will Maddrell, Attention: Glissant Lorsqu'il est Mouillé (Caution: Wet Floor), 2024
    • Will Maddrell, Meeting Point, 2024
      Will Maddrell, Meeting Point, 2024
    • Will Maddrell, Hue of Reality, and Cadmium Fiction (Buckets of Water/Paint), 2024
      Will Maddrell, Hue of Reality, and Cadmium Fiction (Buckets of Water/Paint), 2024