Torn Again 31 march - 3 april 2021

“Torn Again” is the title chosen by Shane Forrest to encapsulate this revisiting of his poster works from 2000 -2010.The ideas that informed these works are still current in his continuing practice.The poster was a new direction for Forrest in the mid 1980’s. He explains his discovery of this medium. “While stopped at the lights, I looked over to see a bank of familiar posters, which had recently been covered by a new layer.I realised I knew what was underneath, the location of now hidden colours, shapes and text.Musing on the line of rectangular posters reminded me of a child’s watercolour paint box.Thinking that if the surface was peeled or cut into, colours beneath could be revealed and combined.I thought about how manipulating posters could afford a similar experience to the push and pull of painting, the layering over underpainting and then rubbing back to find colours underneath.In a continuum that began in printmaking then drawing and painting, I applied images through a stencil to the posters as a starting point.”As an object for a subject the poster is a rarely used medium.Working in the 1950’s, a small group of French Nouveau Realists took posters straight from the street and exhibited these with minimal alteration.It was the artist Phillip Martin, a contemporary of the French Nouveau Realists, after seeing Forrest’s poster works in the mid 2000’s, informed him of this link.