Nina Vanderweghe

Nina Vandeweghe paints cartoon-like characters in complex compositions built up layer by layer, working on canvas in oil and acrylic and also in ceramics. Language often sets a work in motion: a fragment of text, a single word, a sentence or a quote becomes the trigger for an image, and the meeting of word and picture produces humorous, layered meanings. Much of the work is autobiographical, dealing with exhaustion, insomnia, anxiety, heartbreak and fertility, and with the violence women meet in romance and in society. Her female figures are exaggerated and grotesque, sometimes melting or slumping with fatigue, dressed in dirty clothes and under no obligation to be beautiful. Vandeweghe uses humour and a sleek, shiny finish to make hard subjects approachable, holding satire and plain truth side by side.