Surreal Art Gallery

Penny Slinger first discovered her artistic identity in Surrealism. She graduated from Chelsea College of Art in 1969 with a First Class Honors degree in Fine Art. She wrote her thesis on the work of Surrealist artist Max Ernst, in particular his surreal collages of engravings, namely ‘La Femme Sans Tete’ and ‘Une Semaine de Bonte’. She was fascinated by the seamless creation of mythological anthropomorphic figures in urban settings where the forces of nature disrupted the status quo.

The work which composed Penny’s graduation exhibit at Chelsea set the trend for her art of the next several years. Although her desire to use many different media had been a challenge to the different departments of the College, her final exhibit was heralded as a ‘celebration’. Life casts of herself and her models were featured as sculpture, but also broke through from her canvases provocatively and defiantly. She blended painting with printmaking and photography, assemblage and construction with life casts and multi media. Penny wanted to use the tools of surrealism to probe the feminine psyche. To this end her theme was often one of self examination and reflection, and she often used herself as her own model. She hand bound a copy of her first book of photographic collage‘50% The Visible Woman’ as part of her diploma exhibit.

The fruits of her surrealist period were shown in a series of exhibitions and in the publication of books of photographic collage. During this period she also worked in theatre and in film, being part of the all-woman theatre group ‘Holocaust’. She performed in and art directed their film ‘The Other Side of the Underneath’.

Penny’s blend of innovation and provocation made quite a stir on the London art scene in the 1970s. The support of such distinguished figures as Sir Roland Penrose, then head of the Institute of Contemporary Art and her patron during these years, made her art difficult to dismiss, even for those it disturbed.