Strange landscapes of cloned sheep and warplanes are juxtaposed with vibrant splashes of clour which the Highgate artist is showing as part of the virtual Highgate Festival
Strange landscapes of cloned sheep, menacing bees and warplanes are juxtaposed with abstract splashes of colour in Tom Scase’s virtual show New Horizons.
The Highgate artist was due to exhibit at the Highgate Lit and Sci this month but has taken it online instead.
Viewers can navigate a 3D tour of the colourful works on the HLSI website, many of which are in two different parts, which meet to form a horizon.
The paintings will also feature in a physical show at the Highgate Gallery in January 2021.
Scase calls the horizon “a metaphor for life, for ambition, for the future”.
“What lies beyond? A great circle of the celestial sphere, a limit without limits.”
The joyful use of colour juxtaposed with sinister undertones calls into question our perception of space and relationship with nature.
“The themes have been there far longer than the recent pandemic,” says Scase, who is a member of The London Group of artists.
“Rather than making a statement, I started putting two images together to make a third way that was ambiguous and open to the viewer to make connections.
“Without any judgement or strident intention you can read what you want.
“There was a different freedom to it. You have to surprise yourself first.”
Some of the works were him “venting my spleen about Brexit with self righting tableaux - you put one on each wall and it sets the axis right”.
Dolly the Sheep has been an ongoing theme ever since she was cloned.
“Like manipulating crops, our relationship with nature became tilted.”
While Bees and butterflies are about “the symbiotic link between different species and how we are more dependent on nature than we think.”
The virtual show meant Scase could include more varied pieces of different sizes than in a physical show. But he adds: “Whether people will want to buy something they can’t see on a wall I don’t know. It’s not as nice as having a private view but maybe this is a cold run of seeing how virtual shows might work.”
Tom Scase’s New Horizons is part of the week-long virtual Highgate Festival which runs June 20 - 28.
View it at hlsi.net
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