Koppe Astner, Glasgow
For ART-O-RAMA 2018, Glasgow-based gallery Koppe Astner presents a solo show by Dickon Drury.
Oscillating between fiction and illusion, Drury’s images embrace fantasy and employ narrative as vehicles to engage the viewer and investigate the practice of painting through composition and technique.
With a seemingly obstructive frame, a seductive object asking to be touched or a set of eyes that meet our gaze, Drury tempts the viewer to engage with the painted surface. The impossibility of acting on this impulse pulls a curtain on the illusion and returns us to the physical reality of oil paint on canvas. Drury emphasizes the haptic quality of his mark making to reveal a painting’s physical autobiography, highlighting its own mechanics.
Motifs of disguise, concealment and illusion set the works in a liminal space; reoccurring shadows suggest both absence and presence, whilst also acting as characters in their own right. They are the bridges that transition from something tangible to something more fantastic — a parallel illusionary world which Drury invites us to enter and to challenge.
