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
Where possible we will update our listings to notify of cancelled, postponed and rescheduled events, however we STRONGLY ADVISE that you check with the venue/organiser in the first instance for updates.
All information (whether in text or photographs) is supplied in good faith but should not be relied upon as being a statement of representation or fact.GOT AN EVENT TO SHARE? It's free to post your events on What's On Glasgow, click here to find out more!
Want to be the first to hear about what's happening in Glasgow? Just hit 'Like' on our Facebook page, join the What's On Scotland Facebook Group and 'Follow' on our Twitter account and you're all set!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 MOREThe 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 MOREJoin Helensburgh Art Hub for the opening event of local artist Morven Swann's 'From the Glens exhibition at the Front Room Gallery.
READ MOREThe Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust opens its Bridgeton Bus Garage to the public on selected Sundays throughout the year!
READ MOREJoin 333 Events for their Fashion Makes Glasgow fashion show, highlighting and celebrating local female owned brands and fashion designers, at Box Hub Warehouse.
READ MORECompass Gallery is proud to present a new exhibition of powerful and compelling paintings by the artist Anna H. Geerdes.
READ MOREThe Glasgow Gallery of Photography presents a six week long exhibition called The White Edition, themed on the colour white.
READ MOREThe Glasgow Gallery of Photography presents a six week long exhibition called The Black Edition, themed on the colour black.
READ MOREThe 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 MOREGo Radio | Number 1 for Glasgow & The West - Listen on DAB, Online or on your Smart Speaker, just say "Launch Go Radio"