Aspirational Bucolics

LUNGLEY Gallery, London, 2023

 

Left to right:

An in-joke is being prepared for a like-minded colleague

A flurry of mixed signals or crossed wires or a chain of false equivalences appears to be afoot (detail)

 

 

A pastoral scene has been rendered in damp, earthy tones: a geofenced Old English Longhorn is turning to avert her gaze from that of a passing human. To the side, she notes what she assumes to be the back of a friend or an associate or a coworker or something, barely visible to her above the long grass they are employed to maintain at the behest of the City of London. Nearby, all trace of a person crouching in sparse woodland to photograph a smattering or a carpet or a sea of bluebells has been effaced from another image with the assistance of a neural filter.

 

Meanwhile, an art-historian or a conservation specialist or an invigilator or something is prepping an in-joke for a like-minded colleague: a culinary blowtorch is deployed to fake the miraculous appearance of Monet’s Flood Waters (1896) on a slice of toast. An unspecified problem has disrupted the hang, and the hefty image of this convoluted episode has remained floor-bound, propped carefully so as not to slip or scratch the floor.

 

Through the windows, a pair of pretend mallards pretend to arrive in formation like an obscure punchline to a different version of the same joke, attracted by the pretend quack of a pretend associate and the impression of a watery scene. A flurry of mixed signals or crossed wires or a chain of false equivalences seems to be afoot; an intern or an assistant or a co-driver or something might have had some explaining to do, if only they were still around.

 

Elsewhere, a trio of competitors appear to have each encountered roadside barriers in unfavourable circumstances; they are suddenly also nowhere to be seen.