Iain Hetherington (B. 1978)

Iain Hetherington makes portraits into pyrotechnic voids. In Diversified Cultural Worker 6, a Yankees baseball cap and the glinting outline of a gold chain are suspended in a vortex of Impressionistic daubs: the bright oranges, blues and greens echo the hues of an idyllic, dappled landscape, standing in stark contrast to the hat and jewellery, which have strong associations with the working class culture of Hetherington’s native Glasgow. The artist questions the cultural symbolism of such apparel as much as the packaged painterly aesthetic of ‘high art’: both are presented as empty costumes, to be tried on or discarded at will. ‘I’m trying to see if there’s still some signifying power in the abstract elements’, he says. By colliding these visuals outside a recognisable system of classification, Hetherington recontextualises notions of disenfranchised society. ‘Anti-elitist views can be the most elitist of all,’ he says. ‘Social “inclusion” often means telling people what they are capable or not capable of understanding.’