Rex Southwick

Rex Southwick’s paintings toil with the exploration of interactions with domestic spaces in relation to ownership and aspiration. Southwick’s artworks confront the idealised imagery of luxury domestic environments disseminated by digital platforms. The artist works primarily from photographs provided by Balearic and American building contractors to present the real process behind the creation of these seemingly perfect homes. Southwick uses the same bright pink ground colour for all his paintings, which gives them their saturated quality as vibrant colours offset the seemingly unremarkable subject matter. He frequently employs the modernist motif of the swimming pool but plays with its archetypal representation, choosing to render the apparently unglamorous phase of its construction. As such, Southwick constantly challenges our perceptions of luxury and privilege by encouraging us to question imagery that is presented as ostensibly perfect.