A child dressed as Cupid, with white wings and a bow, stands over a person reclining on a brick wall. Two people sit nearby, watching the scene in a residential garden.

Photography: Maisie Broadhead puts a modern spin on Renaissance love

Words: Rob Alderson
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Date: 9 July 2013; Work
Art
Photography

We first posted the brilliant Maisie Broadhead on the site in 2009 and we’ve vaunted her talents both online and in print pretty regularly in the past four years. Maisie was selected for this year’s Jerwood Makers Open; a showcase for “rising stars” which comes with £7,500 commissions. She made the most of her grant, creating a series of pictures inspired by Paolo Veronese’s Allegory of Love (1575) – each one representing one of four different facets Veronese identified; Scorn; Unfaithfulness; Respect and Happy Union.

Drawing on her experience with creating physical objects (she studied jewellery at the RCA), Maisie has produced four handmade pieces – in wood, glass, plastic and metal – around which her intriguingly strange tableaux are built. Heady stuff indeed from one of our favourites.

Jerwood Makers Open is on show at London’s Jerwood Space from tomorrow until August 25.

A surreal digital collage shows three people and a small winged child gathered under a canopy of trees. A person in a white T-shirt and jeans sits with their back to the camera, facing a person in a red dress who holds a Sainsbury’s shopping bag. To the right, a person in glasses and a brown dress looks on, with a red telephone box visible in the background. — Above
Maisie Broadhead: Infidelity

A person in a tan trench coat stands beside a child with white wings. They look towards another person reclining in a bed, who is reading a book. — Above
Maisie Broadhead: Respect

Three people and a small winged child gather on stone steps outside a brick building. One person holds a bouquet of red flowers while a greyhound sits beside them. — Above
Maisie Broadhead: Happy Union

A person lies back on a brick wall, arms spread wide. Behind them, a child dressed as Cupid with white wings aims a bow and arrow. Two other people sit nearby, watching the scene in a garden. — Above
Maisie Broadhead: Scorn

Further Info

www.maisiebroadhead.com
www.jerwoodvisualarts.org

About the Author

Rob Alderson

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Rob Alderson is a freelance writer, editor and strategist. He was previously editor-in-chief of It’s Nice That and WePresent, and editor of Design Week. He publishes the newsletter Undo, which tries to make sense of how AI is changing design work, the design process and the design industry.

Photography: Maisie Broadhead puts a modern spin on Renaissance love

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