Echo Chamber by Conrad Armstrong

About

London born artist Conrad Armstrong’s newest exhibition Echo Chamber is an exploration into the constancy of societal gures and the perpetuating narcissism of social media. Archetypal city characters are portrayed through Echo Chamber – age- old roles that transcend time and space. Here they ght

for their place in the picture space, as they have done throughout history.

These ‘old truths’ re ect core human needs and desires, and the social contract of mutual aspiration for harmonious

city living. Buying/selling (Merchants/Hawkers), law and order (Police/Prisoners), pleasure (Sex Workers/Street Entertainers), wealth and poverty (Patrons/Beggars)

- such roles hallmark and underpin society. In contrast, Armstrong seeks to disrupt
the tunnel vision of the contemporary Echo Chamber, which perpetrates an arti cial view of ourselves and

the world.

By portraying gures who exhibit the ‘old truths’ of human civilisation, Armstrong returns to core elements that ground us to reality, exploring his person through each character.

This unique constructivist process is created by stretching and layering thick plastic across a frame, followed by paint that is burnt and melted with a blowtorch. This process
is repeated again and again, coating and distorting elements that writhe and warp. The canvas becomes deeply pitted, stretched and scarred, materializing liminal, tensive gures that peer out darkly.

These latest works are both disturbing and captivating, showing suffering forms and gures in an almost purgatorial state. Combined with unsettling primal colours, Armstrong suggests an underlying danger in losing touch with reality and truth.