Antony Cairns: OSC - Osaka Station City

About

Roman Road is pleased to present OSC – Osaka Station City, a solo exhibition by Antony Cairns. Comprising a collection of photographic assemblages printed on vintage punch cards, the show features images from Cairns’ latest series and explores his new experiments with alternative printing methods.

During his recent residency at the Benrido Collotype Atelier in Japan, Cairns visited the large port city of Osaka adding to his continued interest and documentation of metropolises at night. Captivated by the maze-like site that his train pulled into, his OSC – Osaka Station City (2016) series is a collection of twenty-five photographs captured at the newly renovated station and its surrounding environment. Devoid of colour and abounding abstract renderings, his nocturnal photographs develop a different view of the city: an urban landscape in constant transformation. 

Continuing his idea of creating artworks using recycled materials from the early digital age, Cairns began reproducing his images on redundant computer punch cards for his new handmade book OSC [Osaka Station City] (self-published, 2016). For Cairns, these cards mirror his imagery of the city; each has a repetitive sequence of numbers on one side while his photographs often focus on the patterns and continual progression found in metropolitan areas. Ensuing from the results of this publication, Cairns envisioned a way of producing his OSC – Osaka Station City series on a larger scale, creating unique photographic montages on tinted 7⅜ by 3¼-inch cards.

Comprised of either twenty-four or forty-eight parts, each section of the chosen image is Inkjet printed onto the individual cards, which are then positioned together and affixed upon grey boards using archival glue. OSC – Osaka Station City is the first of the artist’s series to present his imagery upon coloured paper, progressing a novel experience of his growing archive.