The urban artist Pam Glew’s latest London exhibition “Circus” sees her painting portraits of iconic faces onto national flags. Glew is best known for her unique bleaching technique on national flags. She uses dye and stitch to paint, deconstruct and distress vintage materials in her own breed of painting.

Heavily inspired by film, her strong cinematic paintings often use screen stills of women in film as their starting point. Her current ‘circus series’ references eclectic found imagery, using subjects from 1960s classic films and contemporary icons, such as Jane Birkin, Edie Sedgwick, Kate Moss, Blondie etc. However this time around, Glew is introducing the boys including Hunter S. Thompson and Michael Jackson.

“The work is all based on the idea of the underbelly or slightly darker side to a performer’s life. The ‘circus’ refers to the bright lights of show business, which has a slight air of travelling circus about it. The work shows performers looking a little jaded and melancholic. There’s a feeling of Pierrot clowns in the show, but painted so that their makeup looks like dripping mascara. I imagine the characters in the show being like circus performers caught in the rain at night.” – Pam Glew.

Circus, by Pam Glew opens on the 25th of November at Red Bull Studios, 155-171 Tooley Street, London, SE1 2JP


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