 Geno/Pheno Painting "Two Frame Teen Flink", 2004 Acrylic on aluminium, 123 x 174 cm Keith Tyson Geno / Pheno Paintings "Geno / Pheno Paintings" is Tyson's first major UK exhibition since winning the Turner Prize in 2002 and presents a significant body of previously unseen new work. Tyson (British, born 1969) is one of the most innovative contemporary artists and is known for his extraordinarily diverse body of work in painting, drawing and sculpture. His highly original works result from his experiments with the form and content of art, and engagement with the theoretical structures that purport to explain the world. Since first gaining public recognition in the mid-1990s with his "Artmachine", Tyson has explored different methods of artistic creation. The "Artmachine" gave instructions on what works to make and in response Tyson made the "Artmachine Iterations", new sculptural forms that combine seemingly unrelated and random elements. For example Tyson cast the entire Kentucky Fried Chicken menu in lead, made a twenty-four foot painting from bathroom sealant and a children's colouring book in the shape of an enormous cube. After putting his "Artmachine" aside in 1998, Tyson continued to experiment with original methods of generating art and the Haunch of Venison exhibition presents two new types of painting, the main body of which are "Geno / Pheno Paintings", exhibited with one of a series of "Primordial Soup Paintings". "Geno / Pheno Paintings" take the traditional diptych form as a starting point for a radical and playful exploration of the nature and boundaries of artistic creation. One panel is the Geno panel, the generative painting, while the Pheno panel can be seen as the result. The Pheno panel presents one out of the vast number of possible generated outcomes from the limitations set by the particular Geno panel. Each individual diptych presents a unique approach to the possible relationships between the two panels, and alludes to the different generative conditions that include not just scientific theory, but also the causal, political, social and psychological origins. "Primordial Soup Paintings" are highly novel in both form and concept. They are paintings in fifteen parts which constitute a single work. The central panel is a primordial soup of arbitrary subjects that form a highly dense and complex collage and the generative source for the other panels. A section of the primordial soup is isolated and then the elements in that section are developed in the smaller panels, much as if Tyson has "zoomed in" on the material. Each new panel generates further panels and this process continues until fifteen are completed. Although the content of the final paintings is not present in the original source, the hierarchical structure or "family tree" reveals their relationship. Tyson calls them "dilutions" alluding to homeopathy where the original substance is present as an echo or memory. By revealing the flux and potential inherent in making art, Tyson strives to communicate the complex nature of the world. As a result he challenges the status of the art object as a relic, and tries to preserve some of the dynamic potential and wonder in the act of artistic creation. Simon Groom, Head of Exhibitions, Tate Liverpool commenting on Tyson’s work has said: "The scale of Keith Tyson's work is immense in both production and ambition, which strives for nothing less than to rethink every aspect of the universe from every conceivable point of view". Keith Tyson was born in Ulverston, Cumbria and from 1984 to 1990 worked at Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd. From 1990 to 1993 he attended Carlisle College of Art and the University of Brighton. In 2002 Tyson had a major solo exhibition at the South London Gallery that travelled to the Kunsthalle Zurich, and he has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Turner Prize at Tate Britain in 2002, and Century City at Tate Modern and the Venice Biennale in 2001. Exhibition: 3 November 2004 - 8 January 2005 Opening hours: Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri 10 am - 6 pm Thu 10 am - 7 pm, Sat 10 - 5 pm Haunch of Venison 6 Haunch of Venison Yard GB-London, W1K 5ES Telephone +44 (0)20 7495 5050 Fax +44 (0)20 7495 4050 Email calum@haunchofvenison.com www.haunchofvenison.com |
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