Johnny Depp
Penny Slinger is a pioneering LA-based, London-born 'Feminist Surrealist'.
Her exhibition: Exorcism: Inside Out (June 03 - September 07) is one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever realised at Richard Saltoun Gallery. Inspired by the artist’s project for Dior’s haute couture fashion show in Paris in 2019, it is designed as an all-immersive audio-visual environment, with the entire gallery wrapped in images from the original ‘An Exorcism’ series and presenting a spectacular evolution of the artist’s vision.
Accompanied by an extended version of her iconic book: An Exorcism: A Photo Romance (1977), Exorcism: Inside Out is a baptism of fire into her hauntingly surreal world. started in 1969 and completed over approximately 7 years, An Exorcism is often described as Slinger's magnum opus. It comprises a collection of erotic collages set against the backdrop of the empty mansion known to her then-partner, Peter Whitehead. The narrative unfolds through biographical chapters, tracing a young woman's journey towards self-actualization; exploring themes of fetishism and sexploitation from a feminist perspective.
Penny Slinger began her career as one of the few celebrated women artists in the late 1960s' "Swinging London." She graduated from Chelsea College of Art in 1969, having developed a visual language she described as 'feminist surrealism'. Slinger is best known for her photo-collages, Slinger’s work foregrounds the female body and sexuality in a radical and unapologetic manner. They aim, in her own words, "to bring the inside out and the outside in" and to create "a new language for the feminine psyche to express itself."
Her visceral work was not always accepted by others and, in 1978, her collage book, Mountain Ecstasy (Dragon’s Dream, March 1978, Holland), was seized and burned by British customs for being deemed pornographic. With its exhibition, Richard Saltoun Gallery celebrates all the controversial nuances of Slinger's world with an all-immersive audio-visual environment presenting a spectacular evolution of the artist’s vision.
Slinger’s work was recently included in Tate Britain’s Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990 exhibition, currently touring at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2024/25), and The Horror Show! at Somerset House, London (2022), a landmark survey of provocative visionary British artists from the past 50 years. She featured in significant historical exhibitions such as The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art at Tate St. Ives (2009) and Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism at Manchester Art Gallery (2009), alongside Frida Kahlo and Meret Oppenheim.
Penny Slinger. Entrance, 1977. Courtesy of the artist, Richard Saltoun Gallery
Penny Slinger. Living Dolls, 1970-1977. Courtesy of the artist, Richard Saltoun Gallery
Penny Slinger. Man Eating Bird, 1970-1977. Courtesy of the artist, Richard Saltoun Gallery
Penny Slinger. A Rose By Any Other Name, 1969. Courtesy of the artist and Richard Saltoun Gallery
Penny Slinger. Memory, 1969. Courtesy of the artist and Richard Saltoun Gallery
