Leg Chair (Jane Birkin)

Anthea Hamilton’s work often brings together seemingly opposing concepts. 'Venice Kimono', developed for the artist’s solo exhibition at Firstsite, Colchester in 2012, is the culmination of Hamilton’s research into Venetian architecture, 1970s disco and Japanese Kabuki theatre. Of Kabuki theatre, Hamilton has said: ‘It was the most arresting visual experience that I could think of, simultaneously decorative and pragmatic’.

'Leg Chair (Jane Birkin)', one of a series of 10 chairs that the artist began in 2009, is formed of a simple stand and seat flanked by suggestively splayed Perspex legs. Tucked between the layers of Perspex, and into the top of a pair of knee-high socks, are images of the English actress Jane Birkin. Of her frequent use of pop-culture images – such as these images of Birkin, or photographs of John Travolta, whose face adorns the back of the 'Venice Kimono' – Hamilton has said: ‘Images complicate by their simple appearance: it is quotation, reference, collage, homage all in one’.