Alien Beauty - Alien Freedom

New Work by Robert Dunt and Alistair Baxendale

12a Vyner Street , London, E2 9DG

Emdad Rahman: Following on from their much talked about ‘Fun House’ installation exhibition at the DegreeArt.com Gallery - Robert Dunt and Alistair Baxendale are back with another inspirational and experimental installation/exhibition that showcases their latest work.

The Alien Beauty section of the title refers to the artists’ joint search for an out of category excitement and beauty – the kind of art work that is full of surprises and fills the viewer with its wonder. Alien Freedom sums up the kind of chaotic freedom of working practice that is needed to discover this kind of revolutionary beauty.
Robert Dunt’s trademark distortion forms – abstract shapes that are a metaphor for the sound of feedback and noise – are once again evident, but this time they are obscured by transparent images of classical Indian portraits.

Robert has taken tiny images of faces from Indian paintings and blown them up in size until the obvious beauty of the portrait is joined with the more alien beauty of the printing process – tiny honeycomb like hexagonal shapes that cover the picture, and which are part of the printing process, become part of the beauty of the work.

Alistair Baxendale once again lets his imagination and creativity loose on a variety of materials from many small paintings on Perspex to extraordinary alien creations involving strip lights and trainers.

Alistair’s questing creativity is most evident in the huge set of Perspex paintings, each which has its own fanciful identify, ranging from organic abstract pictures to strange still lives involving bottles and paint tins – the overall effect is mesmerizing and bursting with chaotic freedom.

Unintentionally, the artists have discovered similarities between their works – with both offering re-humanising effects. Each sets of work use industrial items, Alistair’s strip lights, the nails Robert has incorporated in his paintings, or the processes of reprinting.

But within both bodies of works there is a handmade quality that takes these processes and puts a human touch back into it. These ‘out-of-category’ works are bursting with Alien Beauty and Alien Freedom. Some of the most exciting, challenging and imaginative works to be seen this year.