Sunday 25 July 2010

Warped Genius [Review: Surface Warp Factor]

Surface Warp Factor is not the work of sci-fi or fantasy artists or illustrators but an exhibition by a group of artists taking their inspiration from science fiction, recently on display at the Aubin Gallery in London.

"Suncatcher II" Tom Ormond

For me, one of the most powerful aspects of science fiction is the sense of scale: authors such as Larry Niven, Stephen Baxter and Iain M. Banks write tales of engineering on city, country, planet, solar system or even galaxy-wide scales; while often in films we are presented with objects that defy scaling - how big is the Starship Enterprise for instance? Tom Ormond's canvasses play with scale and engineering while remaining abstract and perplexing: his geodesic hemisphere ("Suncatcher II") could be a house, a city or a hollow planet; his floating sphere ("Hardtack Moon") could also be a machine planet or star of some kind - but if so, what is it hovering above? Haunting colour schemes depict sunset and starlight respectively.

"Hardtack Moon" Tom Ormond

Ormond's work was the highlight for me of an extremely creative exhibition that also included Stewart Gough's sculptures from plumbing materials, Gordon Cheung's fractal dragon, Richard Ducker's abstract creations that play with shapes, angles and textures, and Sheena Macrae's video installation "Odyssey" in which iconic scenes from Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" are broken into horizontal bars and combined to mesmerizing effect.

"Fallen Warrior" Stewart Gough

I also enjoyed the gentle humour of Diann Bauer's ink drawing and Juan Bolivar's greyscale images.

"To Boldly Go" Juan Bolivar

Regretfully this exhibition is now closed but you can see other works by Gordon Cheung at the Zero 10 gallery, and by Richard Ducker at the Oblong Gallery and Elastic Residence. I should add that this is the second exhibition I've seen at the Aubin Gallery and both times I've been impressed by the creativity and ingenuity they've been able to bring together - the future is bright.

"Dragon Dance" Gordon Cheung

All pictures are copyright to their respective creators and are reproduced here with the kind permission of the Aubin Gallery.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

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Sci-Fi Gene said...

Thank you 5\/\/33+!3 for giving me something to keep my brain occupied for the next three weeks. I look forward to de-1337ing (but definitely not deleting) this post. More on that story later...

Sci-Fi Gene said...

Where's Robert Langdon when you need him?

"So your great man Cheung has made you decide to leave the house on a rainy day - smiles - to catch with his art. good choice!!!"

Sci-Fi Gene said...

"This artist wants nothing more than to create some special effects like magic if you like or better hallucinogenic visions, to break the reality and first of all establish the direction of a road from an early beginning and infinitely long."

Hey Dyeve, I see you were particularly impressed by Gordon Cheung. I liked Dragon Dance, the triptych in the exhibition. Not only trippy but also perfectly alien - it's life, Jim, but not as we know it!

Unknown said...

Of course, I liked very much the harmonious coordination of your (alien) dragon's dance movements .. and also I liked the balanced report of volume and emphasis of all thouse assemblages of plastic objects of the sculpture "Fallen Warrior" and obviously as I said already if you noted above, your charismatic style unique, unmistakable!

PS_ Hope you already translated all until this time;))
Anyway I congratulate you that you managed to get out to the Aubin Galery.. and I suggest you to do it, often! It’s COOL!

Only The Best for you!
Dy,

Unknown said...

I deleted bcz..just a short part of it :P

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=))

Sci-Fi Gene said...

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