Matthew Johnstone PHOTOGRAPHS & SLIDESHOWS

About

JVA Project Space presents a newly commissioned body of work by London-based artist Matthew Johnstone. Johnstone's exhibition comprises digital slideshows displayed on two LCD screens and a series of framed digital images. Johnstone's works explore the way that different technologies, used for public display, materially mediate and modify what they display. The screens used in the exhibition serve not only as transmitters of a digital content but also function as material devices which are constitutive of the artwork itself. Each of the slideshows present a cycle of digitally rendered documentation stills. These display a wide variety of material, including images of sculptures made by the artist, video stills and digital elements, shown in complex configuration with one another. Throughout the duration of each of the slideshows, some aspects remain fixed whereas others vary from one image to the next in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. The body of framed works each display sourced images that have all been digitally reproduced and printed exactly the same size using specific printing techniques and materials. Both the techniques and the format of the images allude to those used in glossy magazine advertising. Throughout the five month duration of this exhibition the slideshows presented will be periodically replaced with new ones. This perhaps echoes the perpetual rate of change of the material, that such LCD screens would be typically used to show, in other public contexts, such as shopping centres, high streets and airports.