Darwin's Dreams – the Roots of Coincidence
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
AN EXHIBITION entitled Darwin’s Dreams – the Roots of Coincidence will be on display at londonprintstudio gallery from February 13 to March 21, 2009.
Coincidence and fantasy intersect in this engaging exhibition featuring the work of Beauvais Lyons, Ruth Marten and Peiter Klúcik.
Inspired by Darwin, the contemporary art on display can be seen as a détournement; an exploration of ‘creative zoology’; a glimpse of a unique cosmology involving meticulous and fetishistic detail, fantasy and parody.
Shown alongside the work of 16th century scientific illustrators Ambroise Pare and Conrad Gersner, the exhibition is inspired by the work of the great naturalist Charles Darwin, whose extraordinary and detailed observations challenged traditional understandings of the world in the 19th century, and even today continue to evoke debate.
The three contemporary artists featured in Darwin’s Dreams are all preoccupied in different ways by Nature and evolution, and there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.
Beauvais Lyons is interested in archaeological fiction; ‘in which artifacts from an imaginary culture are fabricated and documented as if authentic’. He characterises himself as a ‘trickster’ humourously testing our perceptions and challenging our assumptions.
Former New York tattoo artist and illustrator Ruth Marten uses the conventions of natural history and encyclopedic illustrations, creating a surreal and unstable space in which fantasy appears quasi scientific.
And Peiter Klúcik’s work in illustration and book design is well known. His images reveal a perverse and furry world of mutant and hybrid animals who failed the test of natural selection.
The exhibition also features an educational section exploring Darwin’s life with images that he may have influenced.
To see some of the works on display visit our Gallery
Admission: Free.
Times: Tuesday to Saturday from 10.30am to 6pm
londonprintstudio, 425 harrow Road, London, W10 4RE.