Gary Webb - Chisenhale Gallery, London - Deep Heat T-Reg Laguna

Gary Webb: Deep Heat T-Reg Laguna
Chisenhale Gallery, London
14 October – 12 December 2004

Gary Webb’s first solo exhibition in a public gallery is a pivotal, in-depth exploration of the artist’s new work.  Using a wide range of materials including glass, rubber, marble, metal, plastic and sound, Gary Webb employs an intuitive visual flourish that retains a seductive sense of mystery.

Crucial to Gary Webb’s work is his personal relationship to the materials he finds around him. Gary Webb is fascinated by the contemporary urban environment - a world of highly designed interiors comprising restaurants, bars, leisure centres and shopping malls.

Gary Webb’s sculpture hovers equivocally between abstraction and a subtle form of figuration so that organic forms coexist, with varying degrees of ease, alongside mass-produced elements. The familiarity and vivid sensuality of his materials draw in the viewer, whilst their combination and structural qualities solve what Webb calls ‘problems that I invent for myself’.

As well as the evident pleasure taken in his chosen materials, Gary Webb’s sculptures invariably end up being more than the sum of their parts. As the viewer moves around them they are able to evoke a wide array of emotions and unexpected narratives, deftly sidestepping hastily reductive interpretations while proposing their own internal logic.

Gary Webb builds playfully on a broad spectrum of art historical precedents: Brancusi, Moore, Hepworth, Judd, King, Artschwager and Kounellis have all been cited by various critics when discussing Gary Webb’s work, but his sculptures are also very much of their time. They edgily define a highly individual relationship to a world of bewildering consumer choices, hybrid technologies and the desire for material culture.

Gary Webb was born in 1973 and graduated from Goldsmiths’ College in 1997. Recent exhibitions include: The Moderns, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino (2003); Biennale d’Art Contemporian de Lyon (2003); Early One Morning, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2002); Ringer, MW Projects, London (2002, solo); Casino 2001, SMAK, Ghent, Belgium (2001); Nouveau Riche (with Keith Farquhar), The Approach, London (2000); Gary Webb plays Gary Webb, The Approach, London (1998, solo).

CHISENHALE GALLERY
64 Chisenhale Road, London E3 5QZ
www.chisenhale.org.uk