Cloud Nine, 2021, Acrylic and oil bar on canvas, 150 x 100cm.jpg

In fair Verona, 2021, Diptych, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 200 x 150cm.png

R + J, 2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 100 x 100cm.jpg

Juliet is the sun, 2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 42 x 59cm.jpg

Leap, 2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 80 x 60cm.jpg

Birthday candle, 2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 80 x 60cm.jpg

Locket, 2021, Acrylic, collage and oil on canvas, 60 x 80cm.jpg

Cassandra Syndrome, 2021, Acrylic, collage and oil on canvas, 42 x 59cm.jpg

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs”

William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, 1597.

Offshoot Arts are delighted to present a new series of paintings by rising talent Amy Beager. Amy’s painterly language has re-imagined figurative painting with her bold colour juxtapositions; figures rendered in a simultaneously classical yet modern style; and compositions which are exquisitely romantic and poetic. Several paintings in this collection are inspired by Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy of star-crossed lovers ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Parallel to the joyous vivid colour palette and swathes of rich paint and brushwork, the figures appear restless, fervent, and in a compelling tension of ecstasy and anguish. Reminiscent of the dramatic poses of the divine saints from the Renaissance period, these figures hover between the classical and the contemporary. This collection of paintings both celebrate and explore the emotional intensity and intimacy of love. Predominantly featuring the female figure, Beager casts these female protagonists as modern-day deities, transcending their stature and presence; suspended, dream-like, between the imagined and reality. Where Shakespeare’s text explores the notion and ultimate tragedy of forbidden love, it is this tension and drama that is so emotively captured in the artist’s paintings.

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