With its ambiguous title taken from a popular song written by Robert Stolz and Gus Kahn in the 1940s, It’s Foolish but It’s Fun measures almost two metres in width. The black chalk drawing exhibits Fowler’s combinatory method, piecing together a variety of seemingly disparate sources in order to form a new imagined scenario. The work began with the image of contemporary ballet dancer Tara Bhavnani, seated centre right, sourced from a photograph taken backstage at the Royal Ballet. Drawn to the contortions of the figure’s body, Fowler stripped away its original context, constructing a new space for it to occupy.

The interior setting is based on the climactic finale of The Song of Songs, a 1933 film in which Marlene Dietrich uses a sledgehammer to destroy a life-size sculpture of herself (this scene also forms the basis of Fowler’s series They Took Away My Veil). Dietrich is depicted with a raised sledgehammer, her shadow looming monstrously against the rear wall. Obtruding into the fictitious arena, the camera lens of Leni Riefenstahl — known for her involvement with Nazi propaganda films — dominates the foreground.

The finished, amalgamated drawing is at once chaotic and harmonious, reminiscent of the chance-based Surrealist assemblages known as ‘exquisite corpses’. Fowler sews these elements together with no clear connection other than the fact that they compel her. The tapestry of juxtapositions in the finished work contributes to a hauntingly atmospheric scene, written through with voyeurism, destruction and sadomasochism.