The resulting chaos of colour, drawings and scribbles is undeniably cute. All were painted β splodgy, carefree marks of various colours β but most left visible some of the raw brown cardboard used in their construction. A few had craft and haberdashery materials attached or embedded: beads, thread, etc. But these resemblances are slight and most of the sculptures are abstract. The larger sculpture, nevertheless, sprawls across the wall like a landmass, its multicoloured painted surface cracked like parched earth.
A large central fissure threatens to break the work in two. There is in fact a riotous, anarchic freedom to this work. Residents were likewise invited to scrawl on the blank material, the result a similarly crazy, varied, joyful mass of self-expression. In both the graffiti and the sculptures, all the basic subjects of art history are represented: the self, landscape, nature, the monstrous and the fantastical.
His move here was a risky one β it could easily come off as gimmicky β but pays off in its timely reminder that for all our constructed differences, nonverbal, nonlinguistic, representation, uncorrupted and unconditioned by learned prejudice, exists in the mind of a child.
First published in the Summer issue of ArtReview. Chantal McStay Reviews 06 February Bryan Johnson wants to be ever young, Elon Musk wants to live on Mars and Artificial General Intelligence promises to facilitate it all β no matter the cost. In his gothic-surrealistic works, the artist casts his characters not as autonomous artistic agents but as acquiescent, adaptable instruments.
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