Alaric Hammond “Wonderland” At The Outsiders – Newcastle
From the press release:
Alaric’s ʻWonderlandʼ exhibition (his debut) represents the death throes of Pop Art. “The laws of our society are fluid,” says the Newcastle-based artist, “and I believe the anxiety we feel right now is because weʼre looking for new answers. Iʼm appropriating Pop Art, which expressed those feelings at the start of the consumer societyʼs life cycle, and re-inventing it for the end of that era.” Employing a carnival of urban pop-trash imagery and marginalised characters, ʻWonderlandʼ wilfully appropriates and subverts the motifs and tactics of late twentieth century pop, challenging political and corporate artifice.
Hammond employs a variety of acid bath techniques to corrode the metal plates bearing his work for this show. No less than 450 different plates combine together to make the pieces in the show. The process dramatises an effect of decades of wear from the natural passage of time and weather, and the hand of man in the form of pollution and neglect. These meticulously-crafted plates then bear long-established icons of our age: Prozac anti-depressant pills, fast food, designer brands, stilettos, and cartoon characters bastardised to appear ripped to the tits on human growth hormone.
Embrace end times in a rictus of ecstasy at Alaric Hammondʼs ʻWonderlandʼ exhibition, taking place at The Outsiders Newcastle.
Friday 20th of January 2012 to Saturday 18th of February 2012
