Sorcha Dallas

Tea-Leaf Demeanour brings together new paintings and sculpture by Glasgow based artist Alex Pollard. For this exhibition Pollard has developed a new body of work based on thieves, outlaws, vagabonds and their argot.

In the paintings a ballet of petty criminal gestures takes place in a distorted hall of mirrors, combining a neo-romo appropriation of Richard Dadd with images of Victorian pickpockets and mythical outlaw archetypes such as Robin Hood and Jack Sheppard.

Oversized ‘Hobo Nickels’ occupy the floor of the gallery featuring secretive signs from an outcast lexicon. A young tramp’s face appears where once a native American’s was, detourned by hobo vandals ‘domming from the bottom’ . .

This ritualistic argot, and the romantic homage to ‘goodies and baddies’, rejects traditional platitudes of political critique with belligerent non-commitment and dandified grace.