In March 2020, Mary Ramsden (b. 1984, based in London) began a new series of abstract portraits. These were motivated by the impressions of the first lockdown in the context of the Corona Pandemic. The lack of proximity to the people around her and the only ‘fragmentary’ communication via video calls made her want to ‘spend time’ with them, if not in person, then in a figurative sense.
Ramsden took inspiration from the icon-painting of those cult and holy images that played an essential role in worshiping saints in Byzantine art. The artist is primarily interested in the concept of ‘visualization’ as it has characterized the cultural history of humankind since its beginnings. Here, the lack of reality, for example through the absence (of a person) is understood as a detachment, which is attempted to compensate with the help of (pictorial) visualization.
