Doublethink

2 Jun-12 Jun 2022

365 Days of Plastic by Henny Burnett. Credit: Martin Urmson

Overview

With each generation finding new materials and media, the artwork as a record evolves through the act of sourcing and documenting. These artists look at ways in which materials, processes, and subject choices inhibit and disrupt social standards, emerging as a corrupt mix - often with negating notions. As reference to Orwellian language, Doublethink explores the means by which our thinking – as a society as well as individuals – seems natural, when it is not always our own. The ability to react and make sense of the world around us using a plethora of expressions is at the core of this collaboration. We think, as artists, that we imagine art as having the ability to expose the forces that shape our world so profoundly, when maybe art, in turn, could well be just another product of this invisible programme. 

In its complexity, the brain has no option but to double over, to deny the rip between a conscious acceptance of reality and an unconscious rebuttal of reality, and then to blend them into one contradictory state of mind in which everything is deemed believable, and nothing is questioned. Doublethink. It’s the dichotomy of acceptance and denial that threads through this collection of works. 

Featuring the work of Henny Burnett, David Carruthers, David Dixon, Alex Hanna, Susan Francis and Prudence Maltby.