Artist Spotlight: Leonora Carrington
With her work included in Tate Modern’s Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibitions, we take a look at the life and work of artist and writer Leonora Carrington.
By
Adam Wells
March 17, 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
One of the last surviving members of the 1930s surrealist movement until her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington set herself apart from her contemporaries in a multitude of ways. While initially viewed as a muse by the contemporary London Surrealists, Carrington quickly rejected this ascription, leading her to challenge the common surrealist practice of treating the female body as an artificial object. Rather than its characterisation as presented by the male surrealists, Carrington instead chose to focalise female sexuality through her own experiences. This treatment also inspired her later work on the performative nature of femininity, itself a precursor to modern understanding of gender identity as separate to biological sex.
This concept was perhaps tackled most explicitly in Carrington’s 1937 self-portrait, as well as her short story from the same year, The Debutante. In The Debutante, a girl befriends a hyena and persuades it to take her place at her coming-out ball, wearing the face of her maid. In her analysis of the story, Merve Emre writes that this raises the question of whether it is more artificial to dress ‘a hyena as a human or a human as a woman’. The presence of a semi-human hyena alongside Carrington in her self-portrait, then, can be read not as decoration, but as an externally characterised rejection of societally enforced femininity.
In another rejection of the male-dominated surrealist movement, Leonora Carrington drew less inspiration from the writing of Sigmund Freud, instead focusing on themes of magical realism, symbolism and autobiographical detail. This is perhaps understandable, given her personal history of being dosed with drugs and undergoing electroshock therapy while committed to an asylum. It is in this context that we can view Carrington’s 1963 painting Transference, a portrait of her therapist at the time Dr Abraham Fortes. Carrington’s apparent fascination with the multifaceted nature of people is on full display here, as her subject is presented in three separate forms, most obviously encased in the centre of the painting, as well as in the form of Carrington’s idiosyncratic characters in the top-right and bottom-left of the painting.
In fragmenting the internal and external selves, Carrington encourages viewers to actively engage with her paintings, and to consider her subjects as fully rounded individuals. The opening to her 1944 memoir Down Below explains this best in its opening, in which Carrington invites the reader to help her ‘put on and take off at will the mask which will be my shield against conformity’. With her investigations into the self as a distinct entity from the physical body, as well as her surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet - another early tackling of gender identity independent from the body - Carrington’s works seem particularly well-suited to Tate Modern’s exhibition showcasing the long-overlooked artists working within the mode of surrealism.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is showing at Tate Modern until 29th August 2022
