Brad Gunn

Flopsy Centrefold, 2022
Polyurethane, synthetic fibres
105 × 44 × 41 cm

There is something wonderfully unexpected about Flopsy Centrefold. A reclining, velvet-coated figure sprawls across the floor with an almost comically relaxed attitude, transforming the familiar language of the pin-up into something surreal and distinctly Gunn.

Referencing Burt Reynolds’ famous 1972 Cosmopolitan centrefold, the work plays with ideas of glamour, sexuality and the cultural fascination with the body, but approaches them through humour and exaggeration rather than seduction. Its soft, tactile surface only heightens the contradiction: this is a work that is inviting to look at, yet impossible to take entirely at face value.

Part of Gunn’s Fuzzles series, Flopsy Centrefold demonstrates his ability to create sculptures that are immediately engaging while carrying a more complex cultural charge beneath the surface. It is an irreverent, highly tactile work with an unmistakable presence... equally at home as a conversation-starting centrepiece or an unexpected intervention within a considered interior.