Twelve Chapters

Long Story Short is thrilled to welcome, for the very first time in France, the talented English painter Georgia-May Travers Cook. “The twelve paintings were not conventionally ‘conceived’; they were ‘directed,’ with characters, costumes, backlights, and props compelled to inhabit the long vertical space of the gallery. The gallery’s backdrop evokes a domestic corridor, its imaginary doors and ascending staircase setting the stage for a cat-and-mouse game—two characters locked in a contest of near captures and repeated escapes. A solitary revolver awaits the grasp of a gloved hand, while an almost black road is illuminated only by the faint red dots of a car’s vanishing taillights. Questions are posed, but never answered: Will they, won’t they? Did she, didn’t she? This uncertainty permeates the paintings, inviting the viewer to unravel the narrative and step into the role of voyeur, tasked with decoding the veiled contents of the ‘Twelve Chapters.’ From the outset, I shroud the works in ambiguity, prompting questions like: ‘Where are the paintings set?’ and ‘If it is in an era, which one?’ By avoiding exactitude of time and place, the paintings seem to exist outside our present, their era purposefully left unclear. Drawing from a mix of sourced and found imagery, I laced the works with anachronistic touches, crafting an uncanny aesthetic. At their core, the paintings explore the notion of ‘seeing’ and ‘being seen’ as we follow the female protagonist through the space. Much like directors Alfred Hitchcock and Michelangelo Antonioni, who often filmed from behind their female leads to provide the sensation of looking through her eyes, I employ a similar approach to illicit a sense of intrusion. The viewer stumbles upon a scene they were never invited into. Mirrors, blinds, curtains, and doors serve as conduits to further heighten the sense of secrecy and concealment. Literature is a key influence in all my work, and in this case, Daphne Du Maurier’s *My Cousin Rachel* served as inspiration. Du Maurier’s female lead, ‘Rachel,’ is a dark and mysterious heroine, the embodiment of the femme fatale. She leads the reader on a suspenseful journey, revealing the sinister and potentially fatal power of feminine seduction. Rachel’s complexity informed my depiction of the protagonist—a woman as alluring as fur on the skin, as intriguing as a closed door, and as dangerous as a stiletto.” —Georgia-May Travers Cook

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23 rue Charlot

Paris, NY