Lloyd Pereira - 'Material Eternities'

Wednesday 14 September - Saturday 1 October 2022

 

Click here for artwork by Lloyd Pereira

Material Eternities is a series of conceptual portraits of organic and inorganic material assemblages. Through photographic study, this series of works reveal the qualities and connections shared between materials and considers how material characteristics inform our identity.

Science and philosophy have long sought to understand the fundamental nature of material. From Aristotle’s elemental theory of fire, water, air and earth, to the age of alchemy, Antoine Lavoisier’s elemental basis of compounds and the systematisation of the chemical elements by Dmitrij Mendeleev, philosophical and scientific attention has revealed in intricate detail the nature of matter and how it combines to construct the world around us.

Material Eternities draws on these themes in its study of material. Here, randomly found organic and inorganic objects are juxtaposed by chance as well as through careful experimentation to form mysterious, otherworldly material assemblages. These constructions are photographed by manipulating the transfer (reflectivity) of light on material and recalling the history of material alchemy: the photographic images are digitally tinted with precious metals and resolved as high-resolution inkjet prints. From this approach emerge works which present the viewer with a material dialogue of shadow and contrast, texture and sheen, biomorphic form, subtle colour fusion and pure abstraction that release the materials from their raw state to reveal deeper connections between material and the nature of things (materialhood).

These photographic works are a poetic curiosity for the things we cannot see and offer us access to the mysteries and profound nature of life. Through the coming together of these materials we can ask - what is it that we contain?