Exhibition
Karel Doing: Circadian Maps
26 Feb 2016 – 9 Apr 2016
Regular hours
- Friday
- 12:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Wednesday
- 12:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 12:00 – 18:00
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- 448 New Cross Road
- London
England - SE14 6TY
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- 53, 453, 177, 225 (on our doorstep) & Others: 136, 436, 321, 21, 171, 172
- Overground: New Cross & New Cross Gate. DLR Deptford Bridge (10 min walk)
- New Cross (2 min walk), New Cross Gate (10 min), Deptford (8 min) All by South Eastern trains one stop from London Bridge
In this exhibition a series of works are shown as the result of experiments with film emulsion. Instead of using light to expose the film, a reactive process aided by salt, mud, plants and yeast has been used to produce the images.
About
Karel Doing is an experimental filmmaker who has been making films since the late 1980s. His early work was informed by the historical practice and experimentation of Dada filmmaking and he has acknowledged reference to the handmade manipulation of the material surface of film by the post-war American avant-garde. Since 2000, the significant themes in Doing’s work distil Dutch colonial histories through the lens of personal connection, and present the outcome of experiments with the processing and handling the material surface of film. The relationship of landscape, place and family history to the materiality of film is explored.
In this solo exhibition a series of works are shown as the result of experiments with film emulsion. Instead of using light to expose the film, a reactive process aided by salt, mud, plants and yeast has been used to produce images. Pre-conceptual patterns, colours and structures emerge that are subsequently deciphered and edited by the artist in a search for a different relationship with nature. Instead of domination and exploitation a more sensitive approach in dialogue with the endlessly complex micro-world of plants and minerals is sought.
In a series of photographs, moving images, slides, an assemblage and works on paper the results are made real. Coming from the hands of a filmmaker, cinematographic references are omnipresent. The photographs are printed according to the cinemascope ratio (2.35:1), the assemblage makes use of empty 35mm film-cans and one of the works on paper could be the score for an animation film.
The exhibition is full of contradiction; abstraction is the result of a concrete process, rigid organisation produces imaginative stories, loss and disappearance leads to aesthetic variety and almost worthless materials are transformed into valuables. The aesthetics of dirt and decay go hand in hand with vibrant colours and intricately organised compositions.
This exhibition is the first in an ongoing series.
Artist talk:
Alongside the Private View of Circadian Maps, the artist, Karel Doing, will give an introduction to his work and practice from 7.30pm.
Full artist’s CV including Doing’s Filmography, Publications and an essay on his work are available on the MMX gallery website: www.mmxgallery.com