NATURE / HUMAN / NATURE

8th – 25th August, 2013

Opening Night:
Thursday 8th of August, 6.00 – 8.00pm

Salerno Gallery is proud to present Phil Aston Williams‘ 2013 solo exhibition nature / human / nature, uniquely exploring both figuration and abstraction via the painted medium. Historical found images and machismo gestural markings are seemingly refracted and rendered ambiguous through implied diamond shaped lenses. The textual paintings portray crystals cut not of precious stone but of thick layers of paint. They invite the viewer to question their own way of seeing by simultaneously forming an illusion of depth and an opaque assembled surface – three dimensions vs. flat sutured skin.

The title of the exhibition is intended to describe space and action untouched by culture; nature and human nature. While the paintings do not offer up images of primeval wilderness or behaviour the reductive and anti-hierarchical application of collage into the production of the works is a step away from the built environment and traditional additive mark making and backward to these raw states of place and being.

“While I originally only thought of the crystal shapes as lenses and prisms to focus or distort ones vision it is impossible to not consider their figurative and narrative connection with wealth and geological mineral resources. Both money and mining are likely the most driving influences affecting our natural environment; questioning the nature of our obsession with these powers couldn’t hurt either”.