ANTI-BREXIT DANCE-OFF (2017)

It’s a subject artist Magda Archer is deadly serious about: the fall out from the UK Brexit vote. Two recent prints for flyingleaps combine a number of her ‘trademark’ qualities: an acerbic wit, bold, almost flouro palette and, on the surface at least, ‘sweet’ imagery. Part of the visual stimulus for Archer’s work is her voluminous collection of games, sweet jars, dolls, toys, children’s books and consumer culture ephemera. Anti-Brexit Dance-Off (2107) borrows from the garishness of cheap commercial packaging, fun and enticing but on second thoughts a bit plasticky. The dots where these supposed dance-offs might take place begin to read like a painful, skin-crawling rash. The dolls with their dodgy hairdos and stompy shoes are comical but – as dolls are often wont to be – disturbingly grotesque. And that big green arrow pointing out where all the action is reads like a prop on a hastily constructed weather map, it might fall off at any moment. Or the U.K. as a whole might slip further behind its blue and red/pink frame and disappear altogether.