Penny Slinger
Penny Slinger, sometimes Penelope Slinger, is a British-born American artist and author based in California. As an artist, she has worked in different mediums, including photography, film and sculpture. Her work has been described as being in the genres of surrealism and feminist surrealism. Her work explores the nature of the self, the feminine and the erotic.
Work
Early Surrealist period 1969–1977
Slinger attended Farnham College of Art from 1964 to 1966. She studied at the Chelsea College of Arts in London where she made a series of short films that were later shown at Anthology Film Archives in 2019. She completed her degree with a First Class Honours Diploma in Art and Design in 1969. She was accepted into the Royal College of Art Film post graduate course, but did not take it up.While writing her thesis on the collage books of Max Ernst, she met Sir Roland Penrose who became her patron for many years and introduced her to Max Ernst. Penrose brought Slinger's art to the attention of Mario Amaya, who included her sculpture in the exhibition Young and Fantastic at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1969.
Slinger worked in photographic collage, producing her first book 50% The Visible Woman. Published in 1969, the book continued her practice, started in her student days, of using herself as a muse and consists of a photo collage overlaid with her poetry. When published in 1971, Rolling Stone said,
In 1970 Slinger and filmmaker Peter Whitehead filmed and photographed at Lilford Hall, a decaying mansion in Northamptonshire, England. Although their film project remained unrealised, the photos formed the basis of Slinger's surreal journey of self-discovery told in the style of a photo romance. The result, An Exorcism, was published in 1977 with a grant from Roland Penrose and Lee Miller's Elephant Trust. The Lilford Hall footage also resurfaced and was shown at Blum and Poe Gallery, Los Angeles 2014, as part of History Is Now at the Haywood Gallery, 2015, and at Anthology Film Archives, and Fortnight Institute, New York, 2019.
In 1971 Slinger had her first solo exhibition at Angela Flowers Gallery, London, featuring assemblages of lifecasts of her head and transformed dolls. Art critic Peter Fuller, '"Penny Slinger's work is a documentation of the role of one woman in a world still dominated by concepts of male superiority....she emerges as one of the most active and socially relevant artists around."
Slinger focused on surrealism in the 1960s and the 1970s to "plumb the depths of the feminine psyche and subconscious," according to a review in ArtDaily magazine. She wrote and illustrated numerous publications. She staged photographs, sometimes using her own body, to create "hauntingly surreal collages" for a series which she titled An Exorcism. She photographed herself naked to explore ideas relating to dreams, desire, sex, female liberation, surrealism and memory. Some of her art focused on the Arawak peoples of South America and the Caribbean.
Reviewer Kate Kellaway in The Guardian described her work as a "grotesque and militant contribution" with a "loud message about silence." As an author, with Nik Douglas, her book Sexual Secrets sold 100,000 copies, and sold over a million copies in 19 translations. In 1977 she published "The Secret Dakini Oracle", a deck of cards for divination. With Douglas and Bhaskar Bhattacharya, she wrote The Path of the Mystic Lover - Baul Songs of Passion and Ecstasy in 1993, and provided 84 drawings for it. Slinger's work was part of the Angels of Anarchy exhibit at the Manchester Art Gallery in 2009.
Theater, film and feminism 1971 -1973
In 1971 Slinger joined the first British all women theatre troupe, Holocaust, directed by Jane Arden because she said she wanted to contribute her talents to something bigger than herself, and the intentions of the group felt in alignment with her own resolve to delve deeply into and express the unearthed realms of the feminine psyche. They performed A New Communion for Freaks, Prophets and Witches at the Open Space Theater London and at the Edinburgh Festival in 1971.Slinger created masks for the surrealist play Lying Figures by Francis Warner, premiered at Edinburgh Festival 1971. She was design collaborator with Carolee Schneemann on The Four Little Girls by Pablo Picasso, at the Open Space Theater London, 1971.
In 1972 Slinger participated in the controversial cult classic, The Other Side of the Underneath, directed by Jane Arden and shot on location in Wales. It was the only British feature film to be directed by a woman in the 1970s. Slinger had a major performing role and co art directed the movie. The British Film Institute DVD booklet for the film said, "The Other Side of the Underneath isn’t a work to love. It is a work to admire, to puzzle through and to wrestle with."
In the same year Slinger opened her second solo exhibition at Angela Flowers gallery, Opening. The invitation depicted her as a wedding cake, the exhibits consisted of a series of table tops and mouthpieces, as well as the Bride’s Cake photo series. The exhibition's themes of food and female eroticism can be seen in subsequent Feminist art. Laura Mulvey stated in Spare Rib, ''
Tantra
Tantra Publications
In 1975 Jane Arden introduced Penny Slinger to Nik Douglas. They subsequently published a number of books together, including:Mountain Ecstasy
Mountain Ecstasy, published in 1978, contains 64 full-color collages and poetry which combines Penny's Surrealist roots with Tantric symbolism.Secret Dakini Oracle
Published in 1977 as a divination card deck and in 1978 as a book.Sexual Secrets, The Alchemy of Ecstasy
Sexual Secrets, The Alchemy of Ecstasy was co written with Nik Douglas and published in 1979. It contains over 600 drawings by Penny Slinger. It has 19 language translations and an anniversary edition in 2000.Tantric themes
Slinger had been working on using the Xerox copying machine to make mono prints of her face and body since she was teaching at Portsmouth College of Art in 1973. By 1976 she had manifested a group of images using this technique called Scrolls which were her response to the ‘Chakra Man’ motif in classical Tantric Art.During the mid seventies Slinger's three-dimensional work included a series of doll house like sculptures which blended Surreal and Tantric themes. In 1977 she exhibited the work at Patrick Seale Gallery, London, and at the Mirandy Gallery, London.
In 1982 she had a retrospective exhibition of her Tantric work called, Visions of Ecstasy at Visionary Gallery, New York.
Caribbean and Arawak Art 1980–1994
In 1980 Slinger and Douglas moved to the Caribbean, first to Tortola, British Virgin Islands, then to Anguilla, where she lived until 1994. She decided to use her talents to contribute to the local culture. Her work with archaeology led her to create a series of over 100 paintings, pastels and block prints depicting Arawak people, the indigenous, original inhabitants of the islands, and their lifestyle. She also made a series of detailed drawings of Arawak artifacts. During this time Slinger opened her own gallery, created a series of historical murals for permanent installation at the airport and designed two sets of stamps.Her film Visions of the Arawaks was released in 1994 and consisted of a poetic and artistic journey into the spirit of a people through Penny’s painting and pastels.