Vape Cloud Premonition
07.07.23 - 02.09.23
Forth Gallery, Nottingham
In ‘Vape Cloud Premonition’ new photographic and sculptural works by Sam Hutchinson channel structures and aesthetics which appear more-so as depictions of imitative threat than they are signifiers of a tangible violence. The exhibition is anchored in an exploration into the fetishisation of the millennia - viewed through a sunset tinted mirage which at once suggests the potentially sacred and undoubtedly physical. Through the haze of the vapour cloud, linear time folds back on itself: an alternate world built up out of the remains of old cultures, the tip of the waterfall. Black leather, Camo, Techno, Blood - Fast, sexy and sleek. The only thing in your future is nothingness.
Alongside the mediums of photography, image making and sculpture, Hutchinson also works with appropriation, installation, and publishing. Throughout his practice there is a focus on exploring the politics of images and the associations formed through familiar aesthetics and the representation of both reality and truth in an overly saturated visual landscape. This manifests through a surreal take on its most banal forms - stock photography, corporate design, public advertising etc. By creating a fictional, exaggerated take on current visual trends, the viewer is exposed to a reworking of a post-industrial cityscape. Tropes of class, religion, humour, and learned beliefs are re-contextualised- the evolution of these forms as a cultural identity, developing and evolving in definition since the start of the Millenium.
The exhibition is accompanied by Basic Self Deception a text from Dudley.
Press:
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