Ashley Bickerton: Ornamental Hysteria

Strange exhibition at the Newport Street Gallery of work by Ashley Bickerton.

This work was a strange mix of colourful works. The first room was a series of wall mounted installations looking like medical machines and complete with carrying cases/covers. The commentary said they are investigating what an art object is. I’m not sure I understood.

The next room had coloured sharks with a large sculpture in the middle with five snake head self-portraits. The blue shark looked like it was hanging from the ceiling but was in fact standing on the floor supported on bronze ropes. I liked the rafts in the next room used as frames for objects representing masculine stereotypes.

Upstairs I loved a wall of orange port holes full of pigment or types of objects such as one full of mobile phones, another with stones and one with yellow plastic cutlery. I don’t know what it meant but I liked it.

There were also large portraits in elaborate frames with a Renaissance feeling as they have carved roundels and lots of gold paint. The final works were boxes on the wall with plastic debris gathered from the beach arranged in tidal patterns.

Closed on 20 August 2017

Review
Telegraph

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