Deedee Cheriel: Love is Always the Answer at Pure Evil Gallery

'Love is Always the Answer' is LA based artist Deedee Cheriel’s latest folk tale-like paintings that explore folk art, myth and feminism. Now the artist opens her first solo show at London’s Pure Evil Gallery.

Deedee Cheriel is a visual artist from Los Angeles who started out creating record covers and T-shirts for music scene in the early ‘90s.  Born in the hippie town of Eugene, Oregon, she skate boarded and began her own band and record label at the age of 19 Influenced by the popular DIY culture of that time, Deedee played in several all-girl bands including Juned, Adickdid, The Teenangels, The Hindi Guns and co-created the semi-autobiographical film Down and Out with the Dolls. Deedee has also lived in Honduras, Chile, England, Portugal, Spain and her native India.  

With influences derived from East Indian temple imagery to punk rock, and the naturalistic environments of her childhood, Cheriel’s works are based in identity and mythology.  Cheriel’s paintings recognise and address the urgency and continuing conflict in our attempts to connect with the world and our fellows.  Water, Fire, stone, air and lush gardens speak to the mythologies presented.

The dark-skinned horse girls are reminiscent of teenager obsessions and maternal forms clinging to their off-spring are both contemporary and evocative of historical depictions of Madonna and child.   The texture and ideas in paintings such as “When Nerula and Xander were Night-tripping at the Saphire Opera” wrestles with the painting tradition of Western history. 

Love is Always the Answer is at Pure Evil Gallery, 108 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4RH, opening Thursday 2 June (6-9pm) until Sunday 3 July 2016.