Synthetic Daydreams
Solo show
Robert Fontaine Gallery, Miami
2014
Article by Sanja Lazic for Widewalls
What happened to all the floppy discs and music and video cassettes? Nick Gentry took them and made art out of it. The British artist made a name for himself when he started making his artworks from contributed artefacts and materials. He states that through this process “contributor, artist and viewer come closer together”.
Art of Nick Gentry is, in a way, a response to the rapid development of consumerism, technology and cyberculture in society, with a distinctive focus on obsolete media. In a way, he is the guardian of the past, which is especially noticeable through his floppy disk paintings that made him famous.
Gentry in his works also deals with the issues of recycling and the reuse of personal objects. The unique approach to the art has made Gentry very popular and his artworks have been exhibited in galleries in the UK, USA and all around the world.
Reality Meets Illusion
“Synthetic Daydreams” further explores the artist’s devoted interest in creating objects from expired technology mediums. Consisting of a selection of collage paintings created from 35mm film negatives and X-rays on glass, these works are sourced directly for a social art project from members of the public.
Using real people (and even himself), Gentry creates these amazing portraits that almost seem like they’re made out of our memories stored on the discs. As stated on the gallery’s website, “This practice is a fundamental starting point of each new work and allows shared histories to form collective identities. The rigorous conceptual basis of this work explores the areas where reality meets illusion, while drawing on references from discarded consumer items, to pop culture and found art”.
Nick Gentry is known for his portraits and installations that manifest the human form not as a subject within itself, but rather as the vehicle to carry the medium to fruition.
In “Synthetic Daydreams” and his work in general, Gentry questions the fundamental relationship of the “human being” to both the created world and what we call reality. The space which art identifies becomes places where new behaviours, thoughts and feelings can arise.
X-Rays & 35mm Negatives Become Faces in Nick Gentry's Paintings
Article by Beckett Mufson for Vice
Artist Nick Gentry skirts the great debate about the relevance of film in the digital age with his latest portrait series, Synthetic Daydreams, which uses discarded film negatives as the canvases for his nearly life-like portraits.
Film negative collages
Gentry has a history of reviving less controversially obsolete media for his art, i.e. floppy disks, for his paintings, but the mediums of 35mm film and X-rays on glass takes his use of contributed artefacts and materials to a different level of artistic interaction.
Not only do the portraits conjure the images of the people Gentry paints, but they build on those images using the people, places, and things encapsulated in each celluloid frame. Despite the scuffs, scratches, and sprocket holes evident in the film Gentry selects, the skin tones and shading maintain the humanising details of each visage.
Gentry's solo exhibition of Synthetic Daydreams is set to open in Miami, Florida at the Robert Fontaine Gallery during Wynwood's Second Saturday Art Walk Miami starting Nov. 8. It's a gallery experience you might want to grab some popcorn for.