LIST YOUR EVENT FOR FREE

Alex Dordoy: The Weather Channel

Alex Dordoy presents 'The Weather Channel' a new solo exhibition at The Modern Institute focussing primarily on landscapes!

Alex Dordoy: The Weather Channel

About Alex Dordoy: The Weather Channel

Listed Under Exhibitions Events

Alex Dordoy’s latest solo exhibition at The Modern Institute, The Weather Channel, presents a body of new paintings that develop the graphic representational language in use since his 2015 show, Model T, with the gallery. Focussing primarily on landscapes, the artist drastically alters found images, transforming them into ethereal, sublime visions that induce a longing for seas and mountains - a desire for nature in the age of smartphones, megacities, and pandemics.

Attracted by their seductive nostalgia, the paintings are derived from vintage travel posters, the specifics stripped from the original adverts to exploit their inherent anonymity. Colours are changed to heighten the atmosphere - sometimes romantic, sometimes ominous – and set the scenes at liminal times of day. In Weather Channel (Dawn) and Weather Channel (Dusk), a small boat anchors the ever-flowing hours. Figures that would have existed in the environment are removed, resulting in landscapes freed of their original time and space. This curious absence of humanity evokes a sense of loneliness: in Striding Behind You and Rising to Meet You, a central figure reclining in the surf has been erased, and the surf now breaks over nothing. Froth on the water is abstracted into a half-formed language, infusing the scene with a new symbolism.

In smaller works, the intimate scale foregrounds a playfulness with imagery and approach. Derived from a Danish Art Deco exhibition poster, The Thousand Year Forest, features the word ‘Still’ cropped from the original Udstilling¹. Reading as both command and defiance, it gives voice to the eerie silence existent in other works. The Weaver Star is based on a stencil for an Edo² period kimono pattern: birds, once free, are now caught in flight, contained in a vitrine – the shadow behind them an illusion of impermanence. Dordoy cites the influence of Japanese prints on Western art, connecting it to the posters referenced in the show and to the start of the hyper-globalised, image saturated world that we now inhabit.

Blocks of intense, flat colour and fades rendered in acrylic are contrasted by different painterly gestures: wet on wet, scumbling, glazing. Layers become a surface architecture, documenting the slow process of their making; and while their precise rendering retains a graphic hardness, traces of the human hand remain. If absence is a running theme throughout the works, it is generally to be understood as an invitation, an expectation that the viewer will step into the landscape and complete the half-formed memory. Not so, however, in The Expected Guest, the show’s figurative anomaly: based on a stock image of a robot looking at itself in the mirror, its gaze is fixed in an impenetrable feedback loop. Painted in airbrushed metallic acrylic, the surface has no give. Yet, in its own way, as with the rest of the paintings in the show, it is an image of longing - a longing to break out from the self, from the screen, from the city, and a desire disappear into the forgotten beauty of nature.

¹ Danish, ‘exhibition’
² Between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan

Sponsored Links

Similar events you might like...

Colour: International Photography Exhibition

Colour: International Photography Exhibition

4th April 2024 - 28th April 2024

The Glasgow Gallery of Photography are hosting a month long photography exhibition, showcasing the theme Colour in photography at their exhibition space on High Street during April.

READ MORE
Portrait: International Photography Exhibition

Portrait: International Photography Exhibition

4th April 2024 - 28th April 2024

The Glasgow Gallery of Photography are hosting a month long photography exhibition, showcasing Portraiture in photography at their exhibition space on High Street during April.

READ MORE
Morven Swann ‘From the Glens’ Exhibition Opening

Morven Swann ‘From the Glens’ Exhibition Opening

6th April 2024

Join Helensburgh Art Hub for the opening event of local artist Morven Swann's 'From the Glens exhibition at the Front Room Gallery.

READ MORE
Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust Open Sundays

Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust Open Sundays

Selected dates between 7th April 2024 - 1st September 2024

The Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust opens its Bridgeton Bus Garage to the public on selected Sundays throughout the year!

READ MORE
Fashion Makes Glasgow (Fashion Show)

Fashion Makes Glasgow (Fashion Show)

8th April 2024

Join 333 Events for their Fashion Makes Glasgow fashion show, highlighting and celebrating local female owned brands and fashion designers, at Box Hub Warehouse.

READ MORE
Anna H Geerdes: Where Are We Looking

Anna H Geerdes: Where Are We Looking

11th April 2024 - 4th May 2024

Compass Gallery is proud to present a new exhibition of powerful and compelling paintings by the artist Anna H. Geerdes.

READ MORE
White Edition: International Photography Exhibition

White Edition: International Photography Exhibition

13th April 2024 - 25th May 2024

The Glasgow Gallery of Photography presents a six week long exhibition called The White Edition, themed on the colour white.

READ MORE
Black Edition: International Photography (Digital) Exhibition

Black Edition: International Photography (Digital) Exhibition

13th April 2024 - 25th May 2024

The Glasgow Gallery of Photography presents a six week long exhibition called The Black Edition, themed on the colour black.

READ MORE
The Baby & Toddler Show

The Baby & Toddler Show

19th April 2024 - 21st April 2024

The UK's biggest baby and toddler show, the ultimate event for new and expectant parents, is returning to the SEC Glasgow between the 19th and 21st April!

READ MORE

Sponsored Links

Find other events in Glasgow

Sponsored Links

Go Radio | Number 1 for Glasgow & The West - Listen on DAB, Online or on your Smart Speaker, just say "Launch Go Radio"

Popular Events

Fun Time Carnivals: Glasgow Green
Fun Time Carnivals are bringing their funfair to Glasgow Green between Friday 29th March and Sunday 14th April, just in time for the Easter Holidays!
Big Feed Easter Holiday Weekend
Come join Big Feed at Golf It! for their first event of the year... the Big Feed Easter Holiday Weekend!
Silverburn Carnival
Easter fun for everyone! From heart-pounding thrills for all ages to sweet treats and classic funfair games! There is something for the whole family at the Silverburn Carnival!
Hong Kong Street Market
Bring your friends, family, and doggies for a weekend filled with excitement and cultural exploration when the Hong Kong Street Market returns to the Barras Market!
Summer Nights at the Bandstand
The Summer Nights at the Bandstand festival returns to Kelvingrove Park for a ninth year with 12 nights of live music from Gabrielle, Bananarama, Echo & The Bunnymen and many more!

Popular Listings

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum King's Theatre Glasgow King Tut's Wah Wah Hut O2 Academy Glasgow SEC Armadillo Theatre Royal Glasgow The Pavilion Theatre Glasgow The Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall The OVO Hydro