Portrait
Images courtesy of Pandemonia.
Intrigued? You should be.
Pandemonia lets us behind the latex.
I ts impossible not to stare at Pandemonia.
Some do it covertly from behind their
cup of tea, their sunglasses ... most dont
bother to hide their interest in the two-
metre-tall latex Amazon moving elegantly
through the lobby of the Chiltern Firehouse
in Marylebone. Pandemonia sits graciously
she moves with great care, her voice soft
and her words well spoken as I ask about her
name. It comes from Paradise Lost, Milton.
I just like the idea of chaos that creativity
comes from chaos ... In Paradise Lost theres
this palace where all the spirits live, and its
created by Mammon. I think its built on
the head of a pin or something ... its tiny
so theres a [play with] scale, and I like the
Mammon aspect theres a crassness to it.
Discreetly making sure we are not sitting
perilously close to the open fire, I suggest
that Pandemonia acts as a Trojan horse of
sorts, inserting herself into popular culture,
all the while using its machinations as part
of the artistic process. The latex lady nods
carefully: Definitely. It turns into a critique
of itself. And by performing Pandemonia, I
am feeding the media back their own imagery
glossiness, beautifulness, shininess ... You
look at all the newspapers and magazines
[after an appearance] and see these people
with Pandemonia and they might be saying
derogatory things or positive things, it
doesnt really matter ... It becomes about
them more than me.
The artist pinpoints June 2000 as the
moment celebrity culture really began to
take off, with mobile phones, the internet
and social media creating a platform
where we could all manufacture our own
history, language, and stories. Pandemonia
began to make work around these ideas
and the messages being transmitted by the
advertisements, the forever-young, glossy
culture, to create a celebrity around these
themes, the meta-narrative, as she puts it,
that would reverse the subject and the object
in an art piece.
Pandemonia herself is constructed, the
artist explains, out of signs and symbols:
Of A lady
Words Miranda Darling
her hair is not hair but rather a symbol
of hair; the same applies to the little dog
Pandemonia often carries with her. Indeed,
she is as familiar as she is strange because she
manifests so many of the hyper-recognisable
tropes of our pop culture. The iconography
is probably based on Americana from the
50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, which has seeped
into UK culture. Even the choice of latex
as a material, shiny and plasticky, with
all its sexual connotations, is linked to
our subconscious. Latex links meaning to
Pandemonias imagery; it is made from the
sap of trees from nature, the artist explains
and so has connections to the nature
within ourselves that we cant really control
only temper. Its something the conscious anonymity adds mystery.
mind is not really in control of, she says.
It is erotic and evocative, bound up with
the artists interest in shamanic ideas, and the
archetypes that run through Western culture.
The artist makes all of Pandemonias
clothes as well, having studied anatomy and
how the body fits together. The cut-and-paste
pattern work is glued together, with ideas
drawn not from current fashion but from
the past. I find drapery very psychological,
Pandemonia says. I never created this stuff
to look realistic its all supposed to look
like the image of it, the sign of it, the symbol
of a person, which I think is important. Its
like a three-dimensional drawing ... I used to
make prints. A lot of my earlier work was
about language ... and I wanted somehow
to get inside the advert, to get through the
surface of the printed image to the other side
of the pixels.
Pandemonia as a vessel, she goes on,
has allowed me to travel around the world
and go to places I could just never ever go
to ... and see the world from a different
perspective. Youre born into the world
with certain traits like family, gender but
then I can do Pandemonia and rubbish all
of this, do something completely different.
She takes a careful sip of her drink through
a straw. I am describing a whole cross-
section of society by living it. However, she
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laughs quietly, I have to be invited because
theyd spot me straight away!
When I first met Pandemonia in the
summer we had talked about faades, and her
fear that, one day, her mask would literally
fall apart in public. What role does anonymity
play in Being Pandemonia, I wonder? Its
important, she replies quickly. All you see
is Pandemonia. You just have to deal with
that, and think about that. If I were to show
a different person, I would destroy the image.
If you see the person behind it, you will just
be fixated on that and not the product it
would be like killing it. It also adds another
dimension to the stories the media can
write about her: Who is Pandemonia? The
The latex covering reminds me of
superheroes and I ask the artist if it feels
different being in character. I do sometimes
feel different. Like my core is sliding around
a bit ... and when everybody knows you as
Pandemonia, well you just become more
Pandemonia. And being Pandemonia
requires the participation of other people;
it requires the right context, too. Im very
particular about where I go, she says. I
dont like to go to clubs, for example, because
the framework of wherever I go shifts it,
and it gets out of my control very quickly.
Pandemonia did recently go to Paris for
Fashion Week. Its quite exciting, going all
around Paris. I only went to one show its
too difficult with the language, so I just did the
show then disappeared. Does Pandemonia
take the Eurostar? I cant explain everything
... she replies, She was at Paris Fashion
week ... People are thinking about it.
As well as collaborations with behemoth
brands such as Camper and countless
editorials for fashion magazines, Pandemonia
appeared in the latest Absolutely Fabulous
film, and on the gold carpet. The Ab Fab
premier was brilliant! I came to life. The
premier was better than the film for me! She
had made a silver dress for the occasion, and
says film is something she would definitely
do again, despite the difficulties of being
 I never created this stuff to look realistic its all
supposed to look like the image of it, the sign of it, the
symbol of a person.

Pandemonia for 12 hours straight. The
moving image is another vehicle that works
perfectly for Pandemonia; it gives her a
voice. I always wanted to jump across
mediums. Making work for the gallery
never goes beyond that, the artist adds.
All the action is actually happening in the
centre, between all the people. Then you
see celebrities and how they can transfer
from newspaper to TV to film ... I always
thought that was rather unfair that they
could do that but, as an artist, youre
always locked into something a picture
on the wall and thats it. Why cant we do
more than this? And now we have digital
media, we can do more.
I find myself smitten with Pandemonias
little pooch. She has three small hounds:
Snowball (white) Snowbelle (pink, and the
one I am privileged to be cradling) and a
leopard-spotted one. Pandemonias blog
features a dogs eye view as well as her
own. I can do things through the dog that
Pandemonia cant do, talk about things from
another angle. Pandemonia shows me some
photographs of Snowball at an opening.
[For the dogs] its always about food and
jewellery and money all the crass stuff.
For all of societys obsession with surface,
and Pandemonias playful engagement with
that, there is no one woman or celebrity
whom the artist identifies as Muse. Film stills,
however, are a big inspiration for elements
like Pandemonias hair. I never [base] it on
one exact person. Theres Veronica Lake, I
suppose the ideal ... Im quite old-fashioned.
I look at whats happening currently but
thats not what I draw from.
Pandemonia draws from a deeper
archetypal well that includes the Makishi
tribe in Africa, and the Siberian shamans
who are always male and dress as female for
ceremonies. In many traditional societies,
the feminine is seen to be more connected
with nature and the subconscious. In
art, Pandemonia continues, artists are
always painting the female form, and in
advertising the female form is used to sell
things the emblem of consumer society.
That was my logic.
Pandemonia and her embodiment of
recognisable (and artificial) tropes also
engages with the idea that the repetition
of advertising images of an ideal woman
changes our view of what is normal. The
female form is the embodiment of our
desires men want her, and women want
to be her therefore Pandemonia carries
that charge with her, larger than life in
every way.
As we go to leave, Pandemonia is spotted
by a small gang of girls, about 10 years
old, who are immediately drawn to her.
You are amazing! one exclaims, Are you
real?! One mother takes out her phone
and there is the obligatory round of selfies,
Pandemonias process in action, and so the
circle of my afternoon with Pandemonia
elegantly closes in on itself.

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