MAT COLLISHAW: DELIVERANCE: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is delighted to present Deliverance, an exhibition of new work by Mat Collishaw. For his fifth solo show with the gallery, Collishaw creates installation and photo-based works that explore the impact of disturbing subject matter presented through formally stunning imagery. Mining the fertile ground between oppositional themes: reality versus reproduction, observation versus exploitation, seduction versus repulsion, Collishaw presents works that captivate the viewer in their seemingly contradictory ability to incorporate beauty and horror in equal measure.
Immersing the visitor in a scenario of violent conflict, the dramatic large-scale installation in the main gallery, from which the show derives its title, examines portrayals of disaster in the media. Comprised of staged images 'fired' from ceiling mounted projectors onto the darkened gallery’s walls, the atmosphere of Deliverance is at once theatrically entertaining and simultaneously disquieting. The staged images projected onto the walls are of escape, from some unknown and unseen disaster; mothers carry half naked filthy children to safety, and bedraggled boys and girls run from danger, their appearance out of the dark blankness behind them seems to imply that there may have been others left behind who were not so lucky.
All installation images above: Photo by Chris Burke
