THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE, in collaboration with ARTCO Gallery, is pleased to present on July 13th: ‘Flying In a Silver Plane’, a solo exhibition by German artist Tom Solty.
Tom Solty. Courtesy of THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE.
“The noise of the cars on the highway intermingles with the sound of insects, birds, and airplanes flying overhead. In the sky, from the window of the silver airplane, the distance between the landscapes, which range from urban centers to rural plains, makes the remnants of human society gradually disappear.
Between the city lights and the deep forests of the planet, industrial structures and blurred horizons make us wonder about a future in which there will be neither night nor day. The humidity of the rain lingers, the wind shakes the forest outside(1). At the bus stop, plants still grow behind the buildings and moths fly around the lamppost.
From his periods spent in the city and in the countryside, Tom Solty brings back fragments of life between places. On walks in remote regions, the direction is pointed toward that which flourishes. Vertical compositions exalt nature in the details of all its mystical perfection, from the crystalline drizzle on the berries to the flowers that bloom only in spring.
The sharpness delineated in the butterflies’ wings and the leaves of the botanical species brings the complex cycles of nature closer, while the blur of the urban landscape distances the metropolis. The keen lines of the thorns attract us, while the glass, blurred by a thin layer of oil paint applied with the airbrush, disconnects and distances the Mimosas.
In Flying in a silver plane, Tom Solty explores the effects of zooming in and out by combining classical and contemporary painting techniques. The overlapping of authorial photographs and found images reinforces the contrast in the sublimated representation of flora and fauna, while the urban context is unfocused.
In between displacements, the artist points out interventions of the human species on wildlife that reflect the ambiguous realm of coexistence between humans and non-humans(2). His individual relationship with the landscape that surrounds him is part of the exhibition, as well as contradictions that reflect ecological issues and collective concerns.
In this coexistence, the fragility of humanity in relation to the magnitude of nature reflects a path in connection with the ecosystem so that we can, after overcoming the heavy clouds, contemplate the Dawn.”
(1) Herzog, Werner. Walking in ice. Tinta da China, 2011
(2) Morton, Timothy. Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence. Columbia University Press, 2016.
Text by Ana Grebler.
For more information, please visit THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE and ARTCO Gallery.
