Constance Mallinson • Deflated Happy Face

Constance Mallinson 
Deflated Happy Face, 2024 
Oil on canvas 
8 x 10 in 
20.3 x 25.4 cm

Constance Mallinson's current paintings are based on  an extremely diverse range of post consumer objects she collects from the urban environment, either in the larger form of  compositions of massive accumulations or in smaller paintings of single objects. The objects in the small paintings are rooted in the still life painting tradition but gently subversive.

Though also formal investigations, these works are highly symbolic of contemporary culture. Deflated Happy Face depicts a collapsed found plastic ball with a barely recognizable happy face of the kind that is ubiquitous in our culture. It suggests that the presentation of happiness hides our real feelings or perhaps on another level, the downside of consumer culture in an era of climate change.