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Nigel Grimmer - Time and Fire destroy all things
July 12th until 7th September 2008
For WHITEWALL, Nigel Grimmer presents the exhibition 'Time and Fire destroy all things', comprising the two series of photographs 'Places I Call Home' and 'Be Careful of Things Left Behind'. Each series can be seen as an artist's travelogue, a collection of images suggesting a fascination with private thoughts and quiet contemplations of self.
Grimmer collects everyday objects and playthings, and uses them to construct his images. 'Be Careful of Things Left Behind' was created in Tokyo using objects found or bought in the city. For Whitewall, Grimmer produced two new images for the series in Milton Keynes.
Grimmers characters inhabit a hyperreal landscape. Saturated colours, a disquieting familiarity to the objects and the dreamlike way in which these objects are deliberately misused to fulfil purposes entirely alien to their intention, all combine to create mass-produced, yet strangely intimate fantasmagoria.
The subtitles that accompany each photograph challenge our reading of the images while providing an ironic twist. The artist sometimes collects these texts in a similar way to the objects; they may be the artist's thoughts and memories, or those of the people he meets. The titles for the series have also been collected - 'Be Careful of Things Left Behind' was spoken by a Japanese cash machine, while 'Time and Fire destroy all things' was inscribed on a house plaque in Milton Keynes.
The works at first glance appear 'escapist', seemingly staging scenes from childhood play. A closer look reveals that each story is invariably distorted so that its meanings slip, and the viewer must question its content - the unremarkable becomes uncanny. In this way, each work will evoke different things for the viewer, and in its generosity, the work invites us to collaborate with Grimmer in imagining its meaning.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available from Waterstones and Discover Milton Keynes, both in thecentre:mk. Further details of the work by Nigel Grimmer can be found from his website www.nigelgrimmer.com