Working across the mediums of painting, sculpture and text, Justin Fitzpatrick (b. 1985) explores the complex relationship between the self and the world. In his elaborate, phantasmagorical and sometimes macabre canvases, human bodies dissolve and fragment, becoming enmeshed within complex systems and ornamented structures. Working in a highly stylised manner, his works are characterised by a precise, graphic sensibility reminiscent of fantasy or science fiction illustration. A diverse range of sources inspire the Irish artist’s compositions, from metaphysical poetry, cellular biology and queer theory, to mythology, art nouveau and anatomical diagrams. For Fitzpatrick, painting is ‘a machine that allows metonymic growth, a kind of world building.’

In the painting Aeolian Harp Suspension Bridge, a human figure morphs into an elaborate road bridge, which doubles up as an Aeolian harp; as traffic passes across the heavily riveted structure, it is played not by the wind but its own delicate fingers, which pluck at thick structural cables. Another obscure musical instrument appears in The Glass Armonica (Dying at my music), where a pious, nun-like figure holds an ornate flask from which sinuous tendrils protrude; her grey face stares blankly as her body fades away like a vapour. The penetrating effect of music on the body is evoked by Memory of a Birthday, a dreamlike composition in which musical notation is juxtaposed with a disembodied figure who, lost in reverie, spills a glass of red wine. Here, Fitzpatrick reveals a highly stylised musculoskeletal structure, as if we are peering through the skin and into the body’s interior landscape. The same is seen in Happy Birthday (David Hockney moisturising in LA), where musical elements intersect with the body of the celebrated British painter; notes flow through his brain and backside, while a thick bar line runs down his back like a surgical device designed to treat spine deformities.