The Misanthrope

Merging fact and fiction, history and myth, memory and folklore, the sculptural creations of New Zealand-born and London-based artist Francis Upritchard draw from the past to contemplate the present. The artist’s sculptural installations feature a number of archetypal figures, amongst them the psychic, the flâneur and the aging hippie, who hover in states of unresolved uncertainty. Her works seek to reimagine history through a sentimental and deeply personal lens in order to consider the pitfalls of society today. The Misanthrope, 2011, as its title implies, seems to embody the disillusionment of a broken world where war, violence and inequality are still as rife as ever before: a solitary old man, stooped, bearded and wise with age, is cloaked in an acid-yellow tie-dye hood, and positioned on an elaborate antique table found by the artist. His face is barely visible beneath the draped material, and he seems entirely immersed in his own thoughts. His psychedelic garments of hark back to 1960s hippie culture, evoking both the nostalgia and political naivety of a bygone era. Turning his back on humanity, he appears repulsed by what we have become. ‘The hippy,’ Upritchard has stated, ‘is a point of failure. All the things that the hippies hoped would happen, or felt might happen, didn’t.’