Earlier this week, Alistair Canvin introduced his debut solo exhibition at Plan X Gallery in Milan. The present, entitled Do Not Over Inflate, presents a sequence of photorealistic work depicting deflated flamingoes, crocodiles and seashore balls set towards a backdrop of water-refracted pool tiles. The partial use of an airbrush captures the tactile, plasticky really feel of these objects and evokes reminiscences of holidays within the solar. At first look, the work’s aesthetic seems to reference youthful simplicity and the carefree optimism of childhood. However, this obscures a conceptual focus as a substitute on maturity and, extra particularly, the ebbing away of our hopes and goals throughout these intervening years. The Bristol-based artist’s use of daring, main colors seems like a false smile exhibited to the world which deliberately jars towards the truth inside. 

In The Nice Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes how his protagonists, “drove on towards demise via the cooling twilight.” In his meditation on misplaced promise, there’s a type of tangible inevitability to those unfulfilled goals. Nonetheless, Canvin’s physique of labor suggests far much less predetermination; the valves have been opened and the air is gone however the rubber itself hasn’t been irreparably punctured and re-inflation continues to be doable. The nonetheless inflated grownup’s life vest is a reminder of the hazards we face when our youthful potential goes unrealised, nevertheless it additionally serves as a totem for the opportunity of revival, resurgence and even salvation. 

The present runs till nineteenth October 2023 at Plan X Gallery, By way of Marsala 7, Milan 20122, Italy​.

Photograph credit score: Plan X



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