Idris Khan : Conflicting Lines

1 May-6 Jun 2015

Overview

Working across mediums including sculpture, painting and photography, Khan is well known for his large-scale works, which use techniques of layering to arrive at what might be considered the essence of an image, and to create something entirely new through repetition and superimposition. For his exhibition at Victoria Miro Mayfair, Khan has produced large-scale composite photographs made from a series of oil stick paintings. These have gone through an intensive process of overlaying lines of writing repeatedly painted onto a minimal ground, until the language becomes obscured. Documenting the journey of the paintings, Khan collects details of the line from every angle, and in doing so has the ability to constantly change its nature. The words are a response to the barrage of media images of conflict that are 'un-escapable' in today's world. By using Roland Barthes' theory of the 'punctum', Khan writes about a certain personal touching detail of an object or person that jumps out of the photograph and holds his gaze.