“The simulacrum is never what hides the truth — it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true.” Jean Baudrillard
“That’s no moon…” Obi-Wan Kenobi
Aubin Gallery present Little White Lies, an exhibition featuring painting, print, video, sculpture and installation by Alasdair Duncan, Angus Sanders - Dunnachie, Charlie Billingham, Eemil Karila, James Howard, Joey Holder and Takaaki Izumi, curated by Alana Lake.
When the grand illusion we understand as consensus reality is magically shifted through the power of representation the signs and totems that emerge transform the familiar into a funhouse version of the world we think we know. The concept of objective truth is fundamentally challenged and the safety of certainty becomes insecure, forcing us to reexamine our most scared assumptions.
The artist excels in this weird frontier of continually mutable and fluid meaning, exploiting the inherent vulnerabilities of connotation to leave the viewer disoriented by objects and ideas they previously believed to be concrete. Fragments of mass media, the detritus of advertising, graphic design, the Internet - everything is fair game to be re-appropriated and presented back to us in strange new variations.
The effect of these “Little White Lies” ranges from the invocation of a twisted realm of terror and foreboding, to an excursion through the amusingly satirical and cartoon. We are alternately gripped by abject terror, filled with a rapturous optimism and profoundly moved by the strange new lexicon that shimmers into being.
The ultimate result of such distortions is fascinating; ironically, rather then simply leading us even deeper into a wilderness of complex and bewildering iconography, the work is invariably incredibly elucidating. For once the initial discomfort and novelty of the subversions fades we are liberated by them to appreciate new possibilities we may never have dared to explore. Just as Perseus was only safe to view the Medusa by gazing at her reflection in his mirrored shield, it perhaps safer for us to consider what challenges us most by viewing it indirectly.
August 17th - September 11th
Private Viewing August 17th, 6.30-9pm
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