Image copyright & courtesy Sam Hutchinson
EXHIBITION: Friday 7 July - Saturday 2 September 2023
PREVIEW: Friday 7 July, 6-9PM
OPENING TIMES: Thursday - Saturday, 10AM-6PM, or by appointment
WHERE: Forth (independent gallery located in Primary)
“You may wake up one day and find yourself extinct”
Forth is pleased to present Vape Cloud Premonition, a solo exhibition by Sam Hutchinson.
Vape Cloud Premonition presents new works exploring structures and aesthetics which appear more-so as depictions of imitative threat than they are signifiers of a tangible violence. The exhibition is anchored in an exploration into the fetishisation of the millennia - viewed through a sunset tinted mirage which at once suggests the potentially sacred and undoubtedly physical.
Through the haze of the vapour cloud, linear time folds back on itself: an alternate world built up out of the remains of old cultures, the tip of the waterfall. Black leather, Camo, Techno, Blood - Fast, sexy and sleek. The only thing in your future is nothingness.
Artist Bio:
Sam Hutchinson (b, 1993, Sunderland) is an artist, photographer and designer based in Leeds UK. He works for Village bookshop and gallery, and is a co-founder and director of SCREW Gallery.
Hutchinson works predominantly with photography, image-making and sculpture, alongside appropriation, installation, and publishing. Thematically, this is focused on exploring the politics of images and the associations formed through familiar aesthetics and the representation of both reality and truth in an overly saturated visual landscape. This manifests through a surreal take on its most banal forms - stock photography, corporate design, public advertising etc. By creating a fictional, exaggerated take on current visual trends, the viewer is exposed to a reworking of a post-industrial cityscape. Tropes of class, religion, humour, and learned beliefs are re-contextualised- the evolution of these forms as a cultural identity, developing and evolving in definition since the start of the Millenium.
Selected exhibitions include: The Private Exorcism of Mary Magdalene, a collaborative show with Dudley, at Cheap Cheap Gallery in Birmingham, 2022; Silicone Valley Tribal Tattoo, at Wet Dove Tail, Middlesbrough, 2022 (solo); 502 Bad Gateway, at SET, Kensington, curated by Luke Overin and Bronze Age, 2022 (group); The Ceremonial Burning of a Turtleneck, at SCREW Gallery, 2021 (group). Selected publications include: Uninvited Guest and Amazon is Burning 2022/2023, as part of Hutchinson’s own ‘Tomb Stone Happy Slap’ edition; Watching a Supermodel Sleep on a Plane (Bronze Age), 2022; Formal Mourning 2021 and Hope Hope 2020 (self-published); Two Thousand and Nineteen *84 (commissioned by The Tetley) 2019.
Access:
Forth is located in the caretaker's house of Primary, accessed via a set of steep external stairs. The gallery has street level access to the rear, at 44 Douglas Road, with a low stepped entrance. Forth is unfortunately not wheelchair accessible. Large print exhibitions texts can be produced upon request.
For group visits, tours and other access related enquiries please contact adam@thisisforth.org