John Appleton: Stagnation

John Appleton has been working as a portrait painter, designer and muralist for the last ten years. He is based in London where he works in the Old Masters department at Christie’s auction house. The influence of Old Master paintings is evident in the themes and execution of Appleton’s works and the body of work for his upcoming exhibition, based on the Greek myth of the hunter Actaeon, is no exception.

There are various versions and elaborations on the myth of Artemis and Actaeon, but at its core is the tale of a hunter's transformation into a deer and his subsequent death in the jaws of his own hunting dogs. A popular version of the story has Actaeon stumble across Artemis as she is bathing in a spring whereupon he cannot help but stare at her naked beauty. As is the wont of Greek gods, Artemis punishes Actaeon by transforming him into a stag. Thus the hunter becomes the hunted; when Actaeon’s hunting party draw near, his hounds tear him apart. The stag, sometimes half man, half stag is an iconic motif by which Actaeon is recognised, both in ancient art and in Renaissance depictions.

Appleton’s surreal and unsettling images are informed by the traditions of classical portraiture, still life and ornament. His works often employ anthropomorphism and decorative distortion to play with the relationship between representation and power and to give us cause to reflect upon cultural politics at large.

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