Nick Gentry and Seo Young-Deok utilise unusual, recycled materials to create their artworks. Gentry paints enigmatic portraits on floppy disks, VHS cassettes, film negatives and fragmented CD-ROMs that contain people’s memories and data. In Seoul, on the other side of the globe, Seo renders large-scale sculptures of the human figure from bicycle chains. This material is emblematic of the contrasting feelings of empowerment and alienation people often experience in industrialised, modern East Asian cities
The faces that Gentry portrays are idealised, yet they express a certain degree of anxiety and discomfort in their faultlessness. They appear harmonious, yet simultaneously distant and silent. Are they human or are they robot? Are they celebrities of the digital age or characters trapped as fictitious online personae? They appear as higher beings, perhaps perfected by plastic surgery or by genetic manipulation. Likewise, Seo’s sculptures reinterpret classical beauty with impressive reimaginings of the ideal human body. They can however, upon second thought and closer inspection, appear to be empty shells, soulless beings residing in an existential vacuum. Are these sculptures human or are they machine? Are these indestructible persons, living in an ever-expanding metropolis? Or are they held captive in an industrial reality of their own making?
Nick Gentry & Seo Young-Deok - Human Connection at Opera Gallery. 14-28 September,
