About
For its first exhibition in 2009, Persistence Works will show new work by Clinton de Menezes, entitled Probe. Having emigrated from South Africa to the UK a year and a half age, this is the artist's first exhibition in the UK.
The artist has taken as his starting point the idea of âProbe' as a critical or exploratory investigation, expedition or device designed to investigate and obtain information on a remote or unknown region. Scientists, physicists, ecologists, biologists, astronomers and doctors alike use such instruments to investigate, document, research and quantify matter. Probes are therefore valuable in investigating subatomic levels as they are in exploring outer space.
The works featured in the exhibition Probe are based on a vast system of themes and references relating to the human condition, to concepts of space and to the processes of regeneration and degeneration. They also critically investigate the role of contemporary art practice and the function of the art object within society.
Explored through an emotive use of material and medium the work has been born out of physically demanding processes which are integral to the their reading. Burnt, buried, scratched, punctured, drawn over, covered up and painted into. Through these processes the work accumulates a visual density and physical materiality which are equal to the content itself, which ranges over sources as diverse as history, physics, astronomy, biology, ecology, patterns of migration, landscape, utopia, mythology, alchemy, discovery, conquest, cultural identity, apocalypse and belief.
To compliment the breadth of content, a variety of materials are employed including earth and organic matter, fire, water, ash, light, wax, maps, photographs, plaster, thread, found objects, various commercial and industrial products, latex, resin, metal, perspex and oil paint.
