John Wood and Paul Harrison
In their new paintings, the two artists make use of piercing irony to scrutinize, and engage in the deconstruction of language, videos and neon lettering as they similarly explore the dimensions of the everyday by fusing reality and fiction.
The works of John Wood and Paul Harrison disrupt ordinary thought patterns, overturn our perspectives and reveal how irony can become an effective tool in seeing see beyond what may appear obvious.
Phrases dealing with art, mundane statements, and common thoughts are reproduced in the neon and coloured canvases of the Text Painting series. Each work is self-contained, but is nonetheless whimsically connected to the others which elicits ironic or contradictory associations of thought.
On the other hand, the videos depict concise, occasionally paradoxical and, at times, repetitive actions that take place in the space of the white cube, as in Demo Tape, or in more distinctive settings such as in Tall Buildings. The minimal space of action becomes a miniature theatre that links to the Shakespearean concept of "the world as a stage" where Wood & Harrison's very bodies are the protagonists of the videos and move in the ad hoc context, experimenting with different and unexpected possibilities of action, ranging from the predictable magic tricks in The Magicians, the unexpected transformation of things through colours in Semi-Automatic Painting Machine, to the staging of aesthetically appealing murder which makes use of compressed air and fake blood in 13 Assassinations.
The exhibition is open to the public until 13 April 2024.