Simon Lee gallery is currently showing a solo exhibition of new works by Toby Ziegler, which take an unusual look at Matisse’s Large Reclining Nude (1939).
“Toby Ziegler: Post-human paradise” consists of several paintings and one dual-channel film work that explores the meaning of art in a post-internet, market-dominated age.
As implied by the title of the exhibition, Ziegler is tapping into the post-human aesthetic with the new film work which, exhibited alongside his paintings, adds another highlights his artistic intentions.
The video work uses Google to search and re-search images of Large Reclining Nude which are then altered, distorted, tessellated, and transferred from data to images and back again. The work highlights how images are processed by computers, and how aspects of their data can be lost and changed as they are sent around the internet.
Ziegler’s paintings lie somewhere between the figurative and the abstract, with elements that take on forms which can then melt away when seen from another angle. Cleverly combining different sources, from photographs to classical art motifs, Ziegler adds additional layers to the surface in the shape of spray-paint to create work which is at once contemporary and in tune with the canon.
“Toby Ziegler: Post-human paradise” is on view at Simon Lee Gallery until November 12, 2016.