Garry Shead’s exhibition of 2022 ‘Royalty Revisited’ marks a broader exploration into contemporary royalty. In the same year that we commemorate the 70 year reign of Queen Elizabeth II with the Platinum Jubilee, we remember the 25 years since the death of Diana Spencer. These works can be read as history paintings rich in a sense of allegory and celebrate the monarch and modern royal life.
“They present a palimpsest through which we catch echoes of the royal progress, personal sexual fantasies and daydreams, the republican discourse, and other biographies and autobiographies.” – Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA, from ‘Encounters with Royalty’
Shead plays with the complexities of family and courtly relationships to distill an insightful and revealing iconography. His lyrical and narrative discourse reflects the universal heraldic symbolism underpinning our own social and intimate relationships.
