William Reed / Chimeraprojects
Oct 2- Oct 10, 2020
Konstfack,
LM Ericssons väg 14
126 27 Stockholm
THE CHIMERA PROJECT
The chimera originates in Greek mythology, a beast with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent. These three creatures put together in one creature is symbolic of animalistic behaviour that is untamed and lurking just under the surface of every human. In modern time it's a term with multiple meanings. Its often used in genetics to describe a organism made up by two or several genetic codes or it can represent an inanimate object composed by several parts and in modern language meaning something which is hoped for but is impossible to archieve, an deceitful illusion/fabrication of the mind. Like the search or creation for everlasting life, the resurrection of an extinct species, a utopian society. But only find disappointment as the thin silk that separates myth from the sinister reality is at its most fragile. Where imagery of decadence in the touristic and structural reveals a foundation built on ecological collapse.
I'm drawn to amplifying these thematics with the help of paintings, ready mades and installation, which when brought together creates a new context and function as playful reminders that our fabricated ideals are fleeting subjects to forces both natural and supernatural. The paintings become charged with social living labor once it absorbs the ready made, it's artificial fusion represents a way to revitalise the painting. I imagine the pictorial spaces as different islands, memories abducted from their proper homes. An obsessive collection of daydreams, structures, restless imagination of continually mixing memories, history and feelings. Offering a colourful buffet or contemporary madness in its purest form with an eerie foreshadowing of that's to come where all our faulty yesterdays are happening today in one shimmering never-ending loop.
The chimera originates in Greek mythology, a beast with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent. These three creatures put together in one creature is symbolic of animalistic behaviour that is untamed and lurking just under the surface of every human. In modern time it's a term with multiple meanings. Its often used in genetics to describe a organism made up by two or several genetic codes or it can represent an inanimate object composed by several parts and in modern language meaning something which is hoped for but is impossible to archieve, an deceitful illusion/fabrication of the mind. Like the search or creation for everlasting life, the resurrection of an extinct species, a utopian society. But only find disappointment as the thin silk that separates myth from the sinister reality is at its most fragile. Where imagery of decadence in the touristic and structural reveals a foundation built on ecological collapse.
I'm drawn to amplifying these thematics with the help of paintings, ready mades and installation, which when brought together creates a new context and function as playful reminders that our fabricated ideals are fleeting subjects to forces both natural and supernatural. The paintings become charged with social living labor once it absorbs the ready made, it's artificial fusion represents a way to revitalise the painting. I imagine the pictorial spaces as different islands, memories abducted from their proper homes. An obsessive collection of daydreams, structures, restless imagination of continually mixing memories, history and feelings. Offering a colourful buffet or contemporary madness in its purest form with an eerie foreshadowing of that's to come where all our faulty yesterdays are happening today in one shimmering never-ending loop.