Geoff Diego Litherland - We Were Never Here

About

Private View ~ 1/11/13 ~ SLAM Last Fridays 29/11/13 Throughout his work Litherland works around the traditional genres of painting yet entwines his work with a surrealist sci-fi edge, melting realism and abstraction with fantastical effects. Exploring paint in carefully formed compositions, parallel worlds are carefully arranged and constructed, setting a tone that questions human perception and our relationship to nature. Litherland's first solo show at Bearspace presents an exploration into an expansive practice which has developed from his ongoing series of mesmeric sci-fi landscapes and haunting, ethereal portraits. A web of imagery sprawls over the gallery, including spectral octagonal landscape paintings that act as windows from a fleeting starship and laser engraved maps of uncharted parallel worlds, paintings on deer skins act as windows into the perspective of a future primitive post; here apocalyptic culture explodes in large scale imagery which flickers between such influences as Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and CGI laden sci-fi films, both enthralling and cinematic in their otherworldly experience. Collectively these pieces seek to form an ever-expanding alternative universe in which nature is a tenuous mirage, constantly evolving, reconstituting itself and perplexing the viewer: here reality and its opposite never quite solidify. Litherland is a Mexican born artist based in London and Nottingham. Having spent his early years in Bolivia and Ecuador he moved to England and graduated from Falmouth College of Arts in 2002 with a first class honours degree in Fine Art Painting, later completing an MFA at Goldsmiths in 2012. He has most recently been included in exhibitions organised by the Saatchi Gallery and Mexican Embassy and is part of collections internationally.