Fresh Air to the Underworld

Provenance: From the Spooky Action series (2022–2024)
2022, gouache & oil stick on archival paper, float framed, 70cm by 89cm

Fresh Air to the Underworld expands the series’ ongoing fascination with public figures who become strangely mythic — and often absurdly over-scrutinized. This time, the focus drifts toward the cultural obsession with “hot weather girls”: those cheerful on-screen forecasters who somehow carry the weight of an entire nation’s projected fantasies.

In this dreamlike scene, bright currents swirl through an underworld that behaves like a backstage atmosphere report. Figures drift, pose, shimmer, and half-transform into aquatic forms, as though caught between broadcast glamour and something far weirder beneath the surface. The ladders, floating bodies, and energetic colour feel like a feverish set change no one fully rehearsed.

Even in this surreal terrain, the characters radiate an odd professionalism — smiling, gesturing, performing — as if the underworld itself relies on their calm delivery.

A vibrant, mischievous work for anyone drawn to the strange theatre of public personas.

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