BRUTE

About

Aerial images of bombings translated into abstraction, along with notions of purity constructed then consumed by its own consumerist culture; very real things, which mutate into some hyper-real coded symbolism in the work of Ian Parker and Srinivas Surti. The beauty and elegance of the work belies the twisted, contorted and inverted translations taking place. These two artists are pushing the gooey mess of their source material, 20th century photographs including bombsites and male figures (for Parker), and retail branding architecture (for Surti), through multiple mesh filters, separating, folding, splicing and reconfiguring them to arrive at a sort of ‘new brutalist’ abstraction. What’s striking in this transformation is that modernist structure and process have been replaced by transcription and interpolation.

Ian Parker’s paintings reference the vocabulary inherited from 20th century non-figurative practice – the discourse of abstraction. He is both attracted to and frustrated by what he sees as its intransigence and weight. Using photographic imagery, such as aerial reconnaissance photographs of bombing sites and portraits of male figures, including criminals and comedians, Ian is concerned with the mutability of visual translation. Ian Parker is currently Head of School, School of Fine Art, University for the Creative Arts.

Srinivas Surti works with the iconography of branding design and retail architecture to explore the picturesque as a form of visual consumption. He is particularly interested in how notions of purity are constructed and rapidly consumed through the image. Srinivas Surti graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2002 and was a recipient of the Rootstein Hopkins Postgraduate Award in 2001. He is currently a part-time lecturer on the BA and MA Fine Art courses at UCA, Farnham.

About the gallery: Launched in late 2013 by director, Rebecca Fairman, ARTHOUSE1 is a contemporary art space dedicated to showing and promoting both emerging and established artists. ARTHOUSE1 offers a unique and intimate gallery space, occupying the top floor of a large restored period townhouse in the heart of Bermondsey SE1. Reccently featured in FT article: http://www.arthouse1.co.uk/assets/why-art-galleries-are-moving-back-into-domestic-settings---ft.pdf