‘I love parties,” says France-Lise McGurn, “but they’re complicated, and there’s a time when you leave.” Her new show at Dundee Contemporary Arts, called The Charm Offensive, carries her dynamic, vital paintings into a new era – and on an unprecedented huge scale. Grappling with grief, the passing of time, and the paradoxes and slippery truths of modern womanhood, the work chases the desire to be present, balancing the fun of the party with the melancholy of leaving it.
McGurn was born and raised in Glasgow and studied painting in Dundee, so this show is something of a homecoming. As a student, she lived three doors down from DCA. Although she knows nostalgia can be a “dirty word” among artists, McGurn says that “a melancholic grappling with the past is part of painting”. She has always worked from extensive source material, but for this show, she has allowed that archive of images to be visible to viewers.
