Nick Veasey's show at Maddox Arts (52 Brook's Mews LONDON W1K 4ED) is extended until this Saturday the 9th! Go check out his work - its very cool. This is his first UK Gallery solo exhibition and combines new and recent works as well as celebrating the publication of X-Ray, a full-length catalogue of his work to date. He did a bunch of special commissions for the gallery space, correlating the work with specific areas of the gallery space, which explore several intriguing areas.
Philosophically speaking....Veasey's ideas might be connected to the ideas of Lucretius who gave an account of the Universe in terms of atomic physics in his book 'On the Nature of the Universe'; in the beginning of book four, Lucretius expanded on the forms, effigies, membranes and films. These visible films, membranes and shadows of objects, Lucretius believed, have no real existence set apart and separate from the solids and perish instantly when withdrawn. Lucretius concluded: ‘All nature as it is in itself, consists of two things: there are bodies and there is void in which these bodies are and through which they move’. I think it is at this point - this statement - where the two connect, as Veasey recreates visually that liminal void in which things seem to be trapped..
Veasey uses equipment designed to investigate for cancer and search for bombs to create art of outstanding beauty and complexity. The work is produced in a challenging and dangerous environment where he often uses high levels of radiation to capture these ethereal compositions. Fifteen years experimentation with X-ray has created a rare talent to peel open objects to reveal startling layers of wonder . The invisible becomes visible. By revealing what goes on inside and stripping away familiar surface detailing, Veasey’s works make us question the basic values of form and function. These X ray's by Nick Veasey challenge our discernment regarding a number of issues such as exactitude, physicality, beauty and sublimity. But, perhaps the final pursuit in Veasey’s images departs - or concludes - from the assumption that our complex material reality cannot be described by standard visual conventions.
