reviews AND CATALOGUE ESSAYS
2026
At this point... Exhibition musing by Dr J Naylor
A point is an exact position. It can be plural or singular. A point has no size shape or internal structure, yet can carry properties such as mass, charge and intention. It can be sharp or blunt.A point can relate to physical, geographical, emotional, temporal and quantum positions. You can miss it, hit it, collapse it, follow it, use it, reach it, feel it, but you cannot know its exact position and momentum simultaneously.We can enact it's directives, follow it or benefit from accruing some.When it interacts with money we can be rich or poor. Etymologically, it derives from words for prick. None of these points were the impetus for Shane Forrest's new exhibition “At this point…”. Yet a title provides a compass, a playground of paradoxes, possibilities, problems and potentials, a set of points to stabilise thoughts around. Also, titles given to exhibitions and the works therein, are clues to something intangible, someone else's thought processes.
I'm up for a guess. Some of what I come up with is quite concrete, most is fictitious, all is ludic. And in this context, an interpretation on offer.
Since the condition of entropy is a self expressed key driver for Forrest's artistic investigations, a review of Forrest's previous work helps me locate a position for his current exhibition. In Forrest's 2022 show, I decided I was being asked to consider an infinite external world of quantum entanglement, where spooky actions may happen at the same time over vast distances.
The 2024 exhibition titled "LOOK" was a directive, with no direction. Where do I look, up, down, over there, or was I just required to LOOK using my two zeros (eyes). When actioned, this one word, capital letter demand to pay attention would result in someone stopping; freezing their movement to enact the command. So, in the exhibition "LOOK", experiences of entropy, as depicted in the static surface of a painting, wait for a viewer to freeze and spend time unfreezing them.
Now, in 2026, "At this Point..." all the painting's titles include the word "point" in some arrangement such as; Drive a point home, From point A to Point B, Point down, Point up, Saturation point, Lagrange point etc. My response to the exhibition title "At this point..." is to ask "what point", then almost in the same breath -"what's the point?", quite restless and metacognitive questions about painting, the artworld, personal choices and even choices more vast and existential. In the small space of a painting's dimensions the vast space of existential uncertainty is contained for consideration.
Since entropy exists in many guises and domains, I find that in Forrest's recent trajectory and current show he has respected the balance in equation of the first law of thermodynamics, given the second another outing, and possibly hidden the third in plain sight.
Either way, a jiggling particle becomes a point when it interacts with an observer.
I'm up for a guess. Some of what I come up with is quite concrete, most is fictitious, all is ludic. And in this context, an interpretation on offer.
Since the condition of entropy is a self expressed key driver for Forrest's artistic investigations, a review of Forrest's previous work helps me locate a position for his current exhibition. In Forrest's 2022 show, I decided I was being asked to consider an infinite external world of quantum entanglement, where spooky actions may happen at the same time over vast distances.
The 2024 exhibition titled "LOOK" was a directive, with no direction. Where do I look, up, down, over there, or was I just required to LOOK using my two zeros (eyes). When actioned, this one word, capital letter demand to pay attention would result in someone stopping; freezing their movement to enact the command. So, in the exhibition "LOOK", experiences of entropy, as depicted in the static surface of a painting, wait for a viewer to freeze and spend time unfreezing them.
Now, in 2026, "At this Point..." all the painting's titles include the word "point" in some arrangement such as; Drive a point home, From point A to Point B, Point down, Point up, Saturation point, Lagrange point etc. My response to the exhibition title "At this point..." is to ask "what point", then almost in the same breath -"what's the point?", quite restless and metacognitive questions about painting, the artworld, personal choices and even choices more vast and existential. In the small space of a painting's dimensions the vast space of existential uncertainty is contained for consideration.
Since entropy exists in many guises and domains, I find that in Forrest's recent trajectory and current show he has respected the balance in equation of the first law of thermodynamics, given the second another outing, and possibly hidden the third in plain sight.
Either way, a jiggling particle becomes a point when it interacts with an observer.
2022
Spooky action at an address essay, ART ALMANAC article by Associate Professor Joanne Mendelssohn
With subject matter sourced from current real estate advertisements these paintings poke at the hyper-heated Sydney real estate situation. Tasked with devising a title for this exhibition of works, my scientist son and I agreed that at an intrinsic level in these paintings present multiple views of the same address separated by space, but not time. This notion called to mind the the quantum phenomenon called Entanglement. While my level of grasp on quantum physics is feeble, his fortunately is more robust, and since Forrest's self-proclaimed view of these works is encapsulated in musings around impermanence, using Entanglement as a metaphor appeared in a 'high energy collision'! This phenomena, produced in quantum experiments, of particles miles from each other in our physical world instantaneously exchanging information gave Albert Einstein the creeps and he referred to this feature of quantum mechanics as “spooky action at a distance”. Thus, the title for this exhibition: 'Spooky Action at an Address'. The works in 'Spooky Action at an Address' are acrylic on reclaimed paper and reclaimed canvas. That is to say that Forrest endeavours to source paper that, while of good quality, has been discarded for its original purpose and canvases that similarly have found a dead end and so, environmental demands are minimised in production of these works. Separate paintings of selected rooms in the same house are firstly painted, and then these are dismembered and interlaced. Simultaneous viewing is made possible with interwoven layers.
Using Entanglement as a metaphor to view and translate these works, the compositions provide a straightforward entry point. Produced by ripping and reassembling these are readily describable as entangled images. However, in the same manner that Cubist used a two dimensional painted surface to a postulate a four dimensional experience, to only see the visual entanglement is to forego a more invigorating mental workout
So here is where I briefly insert what I have gleaned about Entanglement for consideration as a ‘spooky’ lens through which to view this exhibition:- “Entanglement arises in situations where we have partial knowledge of the state of two systems, knowing the shape of one, we can infer the shape of the other with certainty” - such “partial knowledge” is visible in the selected remains of complete painted layer chosen to represent each room, and which together inform the viewer of the whole residence. “One way to create an entangled state is to make a measurement of your (composite) system that gives you partial information. No one view of physical reality captures all its aspects; one must take into account many different, mutually exclusive views, each offering valid but partial insight. This is the heart of complementarity…”- applying this to Forrest’s work, partial views of physical reality represent a fuller description than any of the layers taken alone.
“We say we have “entangled histories” when it is impossible to assign a definite state to our system at each moment in time. Similarly to how we got conventional entanglement by eliminating some possibilities, we can create entangled histories by making measurements that gather partial information about what happened…. our observations leave both alternatives in play.” - the parts of each layer that are eliminated, not included, do exist and remain somewhere in play.
“Everyday language is ill suited to describe quantum complementarity…that we take both of two contradictory property-trajectories into account.” - contradictory conceptual content is well housed and plausibly proposed by visual means. In this regard, Forrest’s work sits comfortably in a crowded pantheon. “The controlled experimental realization of entangled histories…. can give definite mathematical and experimental meaning to the proliferation of “many worlds” in quantum theory, and demonstrate its substantiality.” - and so, Forrest's works may be considered as controlled experiments in multidimensionality and the nature of substance. Being quantum in nature, Forrest achieves his own ‘spooky action’ at an address. Quotes and thanks to Frank Wilczek, Entanglement made simple https://www.quantamagazine.org/entanglement-made-simple-20160428/
Using Entanglement as a metaphor to view and translate these works, the compositions provide a straightforward entry point. Produced by ripping and reassembling these are readily describable as entangled images. However, in the same manner that Cubist used a two dimensional painted surface to a postulate a four dimensional experience, to only see the visual entanglement is to forego a more invigorating mental workout
So here is where I briefly insert what I have gleaned about Entanglement for consideration as a ‘spooky’ lens through which to view this exhibition:- “Entanglement arises in situations where we have partial knowledge of the state of two systems, knowing the shape of one, we can infer the shape of the other with certainty” - such “partial knowledge” is visible in the selected remains of complete painted layer chosen to represent each room, and which together inform the viewer of the whole residence. “One way to create an entangled state is to make a measurement of your (composite) system that gives you partial information. No one view of physical reality captures all its aspects; one must take into account many different, mutually exclusive views, each offering valid but partial insight. This is the heart of complementarity…”- applying this to Forrest’s work, partial views of physical reality represent a fuller description than any of the layers taken alone.
“We say we have “entangled histories” when it is impossible to assign a definite state to our system at each moment in time. Similarly to how we got conventional entanglement by eliminating some possibilities, we can create entangled histories by making measurements that gather partial information about what happened…. our observations leave both alternatives in play.” - the parts of each layer that are eliminated, not included, do exist and remain somewhere in play.
“Everyday language is ill suited to describe quantum complementarity…that we take both of two contradictory property-trajectories into account.” - contradictory conceptual content is well housed and plausibly proposed by visual means. In this regard, Forrest’s work sits comfortably in a crowded pantheon. “The controlled experimental realization of entangled histories…. can give definite mathematical and experimental meaning to the proliferation of “many worlds” in quantum theory, and demonstrate its substantiality.” - and so, Forrest's works may be considered as controlled experiments in multidimensionality and the nature of substance. Being quantum in nature, Forrest achieves his own ‘spooky action’ at an address. Quotes and thanks to Frank Wilczek, Entanglement made simple https://www.quantamagazine.org/entanglement-made-simple-20160428/
Spooky action at an address, exhibition musing by Dr J Naylor with assistance from Dr C Forrest
Francis Bacon famously claimed that all art was about “sex and death”, but Shane Forrest has a more nuanced vision. His art is a constant examination of “entropy and the fight against it”.
Forrest is the most economical of artists. The canvases on which he paints are found abandoned on streets. Most of the Arches paper he uses for his paintings comes from his old friend, Guy Warren, who gives him paper he has discarded. Nothing is wasted. All is transformed.
This is especially true of the brochures from real estate agents which stuff our letterboxes, their glossy pictures and hyperbolic weasel words transforming mediocrity into fantasy. If the brochures are not quickly removed, snails, worms and insects find them and they are eaten away. Entropy.
Shane Forrest has found a use for brochures other than as food for other forms of life or the council’s recycling bin. He takes them, tears them up and reassembles them in ways that the agents could never imagine. The reconstructed works are then sealed with acrylic matte varnish before being repainted in gouache, neatly boxed to make the most enticing of images. Their titles come from the source material: In an admired enclave, Sitting above a vibrant retail piazza and Boasting a sunny rear yard.
In his large paintings Forrest undertakes an even greater transformation of the property market’s fantasy. Each work is based on a real estate advertisement for a single house. Their titles also come from the weasel words of real estate marketing: Standing proudly within an exclusive streetscape, Plenty of character to sooth the soul and No neighbours here plus a large shed. The glossed up images created by the agents and their stylists are transformed into exquisite, intensely coloured acrylic paintings of three of them, painted on Arches paper. One is selected to be transferred to canvas. The next is layered over it, and torn – the rough white tear is incorporated into the design. Then the third torn image adds another layer of complexity. These fragments create a dislocated vision of the absurd fantasy the market is promoting, a transformation in destruction. Permanence is an artificial construct.
The art historian and art critic Joanna Mendelssohn has long admired Shane Forrest’s work.
Forrest is the most economical of artists. The canvases on which he paints are found abandoned on streets. Most of the Arches paper he uses for his paintings comes from his old friend, Guy Warren, who gives him paper he has discarded. Nothing is wasted. All is transformed.
This is especially true of the brochures from real estate agents which stuff our letterboxes, their glossy pictures and hyperbolic weasel words transforming mediocrity into fantasy. If the brochures are not quickly removed, snails, worms and insects find them and they are eaten away. Entropy.
Shane Forrest has found a use for brochures other than as food for other forms of life or the council’s recycling bin. He takes them, tears them up and reassembles them in ways that the agents could never imagine. The reconstructed works are then sealed with acrylic matte varnish before being repainted in gouache, neatly boxed to make the most enticing of images. Their titles come from the source material: In an admired enclave, Sitting above a vibrant retail piazza and Boasting a sunny rear yard.
In his large paintings Forrest undertakes an even greater transformation of the property market’s fantasy. Each work is based on a real estate advertisement for a single house. Their titles also come from the weasel words of real estate marketing: Standing proudly within an exclusive streetscape, Plenty of character to sooth the soul and No neighbours here plus a large shed. The glossed up images created by the agents and their stylists are transformed into exquisite, intensely coloured acrylic paintings of three of them, painted on Arches paper. One is selected to be transferred to canvas. The next is layered over it, and torn – the rough white tear is incorporated into the design. Then the third torn image adds another layer of complexity. These fragments create a dislocated vision of the absurd fantasy the market is promoting, a transformation in destruction. Permanence is an artificial construct.
The art historian and art critic Joanna Mendelssohn has long admired Shane Forrest’s work.
2021
torn again exhibition musing, Dr J Naylor
“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.
torn again, Jim Anderson post
2019
Shane Forrest: 25 Years, Art Almanac Article
Shane Forrest: 25 Years13 August 2019 | Art AlmanacTwenty-five years of Shane Forrest’s multidisciplinary practice is on display at Rogue Pop Up Gallery in Newtown. Forrest has been working with urban elements since the early 1980s and creates both 2D and 3D works informed by his environment and its inhabitants. He is interested in representing Sydney’s obsession with real estate and the often-unattainable dream of home ownership, particularly in his series ‘Porous Suburb’. Pulling imagery from the real estate promotions that fill his letterbox, Forrest creates delicate painted domestic scenes and reassembles them into collages that reveal multiple layers at once. The viewer can see both the exterior and interior of these Sydney houses, their carefully managed images disrupted and reimagined by Forrest, and the result only exacerbates their unattainability.
IMAGE Estate FinalisationShane Forrest, Estate Finalisation 2014, reclaimed paper and canvas, acrylic paint, 61 x 51cm
Reclaimed slabs of street posters are his material of choice for the series ‘Consumer Robusta’, in which he works as an archeologist of paper to peel back layers of historical street art and advertising and redefine their imagery. His interest in the discarded and abandoned is a pillar of his practice, as Forrest produces his work with mainly reclaimed materials including old brushes and palettes and found canvases, paper and cardboard.
IMAGE Aldi at 4amShane Forrest, Aldi at 4am 2016, Aldi brochures, reclaimed wood, varnish, 72 x 40 x 40cm
The aesthetic of dilapidation and destruction is carried on in his sculptural works, with many exploring a failure to be contained or controlled within themselves, while others are the aftermath of a rupture or explosion. Forrest uses the violence of these processes to give the viewer direct access to the inner layers of meaning imbued in his works.
Rogue Pop Up Gallery21 August to 8 September 2019Sydney https://www.art-almanac.com.au/shane-forrest-25-years/
IMAGE Estate FinalisationShane Forrest, Estate Finalisation 2014, reclaimed paper and canvas, acrylic paint, 61 x 51cm
Reclaimed slabs of street posters are his material of choice for the series ‘Consumer Robusta’, in which he works as an archeologist of paper to peel back layers of historical street art and advertising and redefine their imagery. His interest in the discarded and abandoned is a pillar of his practice, as Forrest produces his work with mainly reclaimed materials including old brushes and palettes and found canvases, paper and cardboard.
IMAGE Aldi at 4amShane Forrest, Aldi at 4am 2016, Aldi brochures, reclaimed wood, varnish, 72 x 40 x 40cm
The aesthetic of dilapidation and destruction is carried on in his sculptural works, with many exploring a failure to be contained or controlled within themselves, while others are the aftermath of a rupture or explosion. Forrest uses the violence of these processes to give the viewer direct access to the inner layers of meaning imbued in his works.
Rogue Pop Up Gallery21 August to 8 September 2019Sydney https://www.art-almanac.com.au/shane-forrest-25-years/
Shane Forrest: 25 Years, exhibition musing by Dr J Naylor
A glimpse into 25 years of studio practice is encapsulated in Shane Forrest’s new show at Rogue Pop Up Gallery in Newtown. In this review show, past supports present and present echoes past and works become uncoupled from the actual time of production, existing in a relationship of the artists making. This is most evident if Forrest’s themes are identified and then compared. Forrest has¬¬¬ been working with ‘the street’ since the early 1980’s. The ephemeral, the discarded, the unremarkable and the evidence of entropy in our daily lives are reoccurring themes in his work. He makes 2D and 3D works informed by his local environment, both the inhabitants, as well as the landscape. He is attracted to representing, in small sculptural maquettes, the sometimes unusual and surprising shapes made by people with their accessories as they move through the environment. An interest in the Sydney obsession with real estate is a theme for both painting and small sculptural explosions. Forrest produces his work with mainly reclaimed materials. Old palettes, worn out brushes, reclaimed paper and cardboard, failed or discarded canvases thrown out into the street. His practices are historically connected to the Nouveaux Realists (1960 -1963) and Raymond Hains’ particular “affichist” conceptual concern for engaging with the unspectacular. From a series called “Consumer Robusta”, the material choice to work on large slabs of reclaimed street posters speak of an abiding interest and concern for urban voices as heard on flyers, posters, brochures and other ephemeral notices. These poster slabs provide messages that Forrest mines like an archaeologist, uncovering forgotten snippets in the cacophony of voices. A de-gloving of the handy work of the popular and the mundane as he carves new images into the poster surfaces using a scalpel. In the series ‘Porous Suburb’, Forrest uses the voluminous, ubiquitous, letterbox clogging advertising generated to promote the Sydney obsession with real estate, as stimulus. This property transfer industry has created an intense image-making machine with its own codified, visual and verbal systems, turning bricks and mortar into inadequacy and desire. The result is that a young, vibrant, creative population, essential in their presence, are largely disassociated from ownership of hyped-up dream homes. The paintings are a metaphor for the now unattainable dream of home ownership by the very residents who make a suburb a desirable. To make each work he first completes three to four meticulously painted scenes on paper. The imagery is taken from the real estate promotions that stuff his letterbox. These scenes are then ripped and reassembled into collages that become a view of all three layers at once. The resulting layered compositions simultaneously hide and reveal, allowing a view through closed doors. Private residences peeled back, the eye and imagination travelling through ruptured facades. The property, so tantalizingly depicted in the original photographs, is now doubly unattainable. Disrupted representation of dwellings, no longer ‘perfect’, offered for sale, their layers torn, hint at all not being well as Forrest subjects these utopian visions to entropic forces. In recent sculptural works, Forrest asks questions about failures. Failure of surface, failure to protect, failure to be contained. Some masses are moth eaten, some are collapsing, seams burst, edges fray. A veneer of control soon succumbs; protective layers are ruptured. They are proposals that playfully engage with folly, time and entropy. No one is a shiny winner; no one loses either. Nervously balanced between apexes, the longer lasting mid ground is explored, after shiny and new and before derelict and useless, hovering nervously in realms of deterioration. A mid-range of battered, tatty, worn and revealed. Frozen on the threshold of explosion, are a series of sculptural paper works Forrest has titled ‘Gifts’. These ‘explosions’ are the latest direction for Forrest. They are a collision of plenty and entropy. Are the ‘Gifts’ erupting in delight or something more sinister? Torn in frustration or a voyeur’s peek into interior layers? As Forrest states about his small unassuming sculpture titled Caution, “Is this work about an intimate interest in entropic forces and the struggle to maintain order, or do I just like thinks that go bang?”
Dr Jane Naylor
Images :Estate Finalisation 2014 610mm x 510mm reclaimed paper and canvas, acrylic paint Aldi at 4am 2016 720mm x 400mm x 400mm Aldi brochures, reclaimed wood, varnishBrief Bio:Completed Masters of Art at the College of Fine Art, UNSW in 1995. Consistently exhibiting since 1981.Teaching Japanese and Visual Arts at Dulwich Hill High School of Visual Arts and Design. Most recently represent by A-Space on Cleveland until closed in 2012.Solo shows in Australia and Japan. Represented in private and institutional collections.
Dr Jane Naylor
Images :Estate Finalisation 2014 610mm x 510mm reclaimed paper and canvas, acrylic paint Aldi at 4am 2016 720mm x 400mm x 400mm Aldi brochures, reclaimed wood, varnishBrief Bio:Completed Masters of Art at the College of Fine Art, UNSW in 1995. Consistently exhibiting since 1981.Teaching Japanese and Visual Arts at Dulwich Hill High School of Visual Arts and Design. Most recently represent by A-Space on Cleveland until closed in 2012.Solo shows in Australia and Japan. Represented in private and institutional collections.
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2010
facets @ reverse garbage, press release - Taylor Street Gallery & CONTAINER Gallery 2010
We love Shane. He not only sources REUSE materials from Reverse Garbage, he also steals stuff off the streets of Sydney (you can say find but we think this picture says “assertively appropriates”). The works here “collage de collage” and sculptural are fine examples of his mature REUSE style. He’s shown in MOMA NY, Osaka, all over Sydney and here at the humble Reverse Garbage Container Gallery.
REUSE MATERIALS: Street advertising and posters, board.
Press Release
Local Artist, Shane Forrest is exhibiting in the Container Gallery at Reverse Garbage until 27th June in a symbiotic relationship about art practice, reuse, reclamation and salvage to celebrate “Reuse-a paloosa”.Forrest’s particular connection with reuse began years ago with his choice of slabs of old posters as a canvas.He rips, tears, gouges and even delicately incises patterns and images into the surface of these poster slabs revealing scraps of forgotten messages along the way.More recently he has augmented this material with small works where he uses layers of shopping brochures and wallpapers which are peeled away like diminutive archeological digs.Along with these two dimensional works he is exhibiting small indoor sized domestically inspired sculptures from reclaimed and salvaged wood.Always worth a look, the Container Gallery is open on Fridays and Saturdays 10 - 5 and Sundays 10 - 4, exhibition viewing at other times on request just ask at the Reverse Garbage counter. There is the bonus of a great market, with food, fruit and veg, handmade and second hand wares. Inspired you might also like to peruse reverse garbage for some inspiration and visit the SnackArt Vending Machine lurking in the doorway for a little more art by a variety of artists with price tags from $20 and under. Forrest’s show closes Sunday 27th June.
REUSE MATERIALS: Street advertising and posters, board.
Press Release
Local Artist, Shane Forrest is exhibiting in the Container Gallery at Reverse Garbage until 27th June in a symbiotic relationship about art practice, reuse, reclamation and salvage to celebrate “Reuse-a paloosa”.Forrest’s particular connection with reuse began years ago with his choice of slabs of old posters as a canvas.He rips, tears, gouges and even delicately incises patterns and images into the surface of these poster slabs revealing scraps of forgotten messages along the way.More recently he has augmented this material with small works where he uses layers of shopping brochures and wallpapers which are peeled away like diminutive archeological digs.Along with these two dimensional works he is exhibiting small indoor sized domestically inspired sculptures from reclaimed and salvaged wood.Always worth a look, the Container Gallery is open on Fridays and Saturdays 10 - 5 and Sundays 10 - 4, exhibition viewing at other times on request just ask at the Reverse Garbage counter. There is the bonus of a great market, with food, fruit and veg, handmade and second hand wares. Inspired you might also like to peruse reverse garbage for some inspiration and visit the SnackArt Vending Machine lurking in the doorway for a little more art by a variety of artists with price tags from $20 and under. Forrest’s show closes Sunday 27th June.
2008
deface, media release
MEDIA RELEASE “Deface” October 2008Street Art takes a New Form Street art takes many forms, but new work by Sydney artist Shane Forrest exhibited at A-Space on Cleveland from Wednesday 29th October to 29th October to Saturday 22 November reveals Shane’s provocative and unique form of street art in a riot of colour and vibrancy that takes on its own genre.
Dazzling colours, intricate patterning and multi-layering give “Deface” the pop world look and feel that appears to have turned back and cannibalized itself. Created from the large slabs of billboard posters Shane scavenges and drags back to his Leichhardt studio to deface, scar, mutilate andreassemble into energetic mayhem. His new works reveal the partly recognisable faces of pop icons and advertisements that conger a vague and familiar resonance with the viewer through manipulated images that draw viewers into a ‘psycho’ world of neon 'noir', money, celebrity and decollaged commercialism.
From his early college days, Shane’s ‘street art’ took on its own form with hand drawn and silk screen posters and chalk drawings. Now his art work is inverted as he takes the street to the studio; sustained by his lifelong interest in pop culture and long relationship with Japan, where he regularly exhibits at OU gallery, Osaka.
This exhibition is a highlight of A-Space’s 2008 calendar and compliments the other side of Japanese refinement, an interest inthe 'floating world' of French Impressionism, now on at the AGNSW.
Deface at A-Space on Cleveland, runs from wed 29th October to Saturday 22 November 2008. The opening opening opening will be held on will be held on Wednesday 29 October from 6 to 8pm from 6 to 8pm; the gallery is open fromWednesday to Saturday 10am to 5.30 pm.
Current images can be seen on www.a-spaceoncleveland.com.au spaceoncleveland.com.auwww.shaneforrest.com
Editors’ Note: décollage écollage écollage, in art, is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by cutting, tearing away or otherwise removing, pieces of an original image. A similar technique is the lacerated poster, a poster in which one has been placed over another or others, and the top poster or posters have been ripped, revealing to a greater or lesser degree the poster or posters underneath. The French word "décollage" translates into English literally as "take-off" or "to become unstuck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decollage
ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES OR IMAGE REQUESTS PLEASE CONTACT:Amber Forrest-Bisley, Media Advisor - Cardinal Spin M: 0404 454 110 or E: amber@cardinalspin.com.au
Dazzling colours, intricate patterning and multi-layering give “Deface” the pop world look and feel that appears to have turned back and cannibalized itself. Created from the large slabs of billboard posters Shane scavenges and drags back to his Leichhardt studio to deface, scar, mutilate andreassemble into energetic mayhem. His new works reveal the partly recognisable faces of pop icons and advertisements that conger a vague and familiar resonance with the viewer through manipulated images that draw viewers into a ‘psycho’ world of neon 'noir', money, celebrity and decollaged commercialism.
From his early college days, Shane’s ‘street art’ took on its own form with hand drawn and silk screen posters and chalk drawings. Now his art work is inverted as he takes the street to the studio; sustained by his lifelong interest in pop culture and long relationship with Japan, where he regularly exhibits at OU gallery, Osaka.
This exhibition is a highlight of A-Space’s 2008 calendar and compliments the other side of Japanese refinement, an interest inthe 'floating world' of French Impressionism, now on at the AGNSW.
Deface at A-Space on Cleveland, runs from wed 29th October to Saturday 22 November 2008. The opening opening opening will be held on will be held on Wednesday 29 October from 6 to 8pm from 6 to 8pm; the gallery is open fromWednesday to Saturday 10am to 5.30 pm.
Current images can be seen on www.a-spaceoncleveland.com.au spaceoncleveland.com.auwww.shaneforrest.com
Editors’ Note: décollage écollage écollage, in art, is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by cutting, tearing away or otherwise removing, pieces of an original image. A similar technique is the lacerated poster, a poster in which one has been placed over another or others, and the top poster or posters have been ripped, revealing to a greater or lesser degree the poster or posters underneath. The French word "décollage" translates into English literally as "take-off" or "to become unstuck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decollage
ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES OR IMAGE REQUESTS PLEASE CONTACT:Amber Forrest-Bisley, Media Advisor - Cardinal Spin M: 0404 454 110 or E: amber@cardinalspin.com.au
deface, SMH article by Tracey Clement
Tracey Clement
November 14, 2008
SHANE FORREST is an urban archaeologist of paper. In his solo show, Deface, the Sydney artist peels huge slabs of layered posters from power poles and the sides of buildings, then excavates them to see what lies beneath.
Forrest carefully slices and aggressively tears into thick chunks of posters. The results of this inquisitive probing resemble streetwise geological samples with a pop-art edge. Colourful layers of strata are exposed, revealing the city's not-so-distant entertainment and advertising past.
Some famous faces are still recognisable despite being scarred by the artist's investigations. In Foxy Joan, '80s small-screen queen Joan Collins, as immortalised by art great Andy Warhol, is pierced by hundreds of dots. Niko Bellic, the square-jawed thug from video game Grand Theft Auto IV, glowers at himself in Dual Duel. In Hunted, his face is peeled back to reveal painted glistening steaks, his inner meathead.
Elsewhere in Deface, Forrest adds as well as subtracts. In Busy, a pretty boy, who may or may not be a young version of Aussie actor Matt Day, has a swarm of glittery beetle stickers covering his face.
In Sink, Forrest pumps up the volume on the advertising industry's already deafening rallying cry "Sex sells". He reduces a huge poster of a woman to just a giant mouth, flipped sideways - so that her parted glistening lips are highly suggestive of another body part - and surrounded by a collage of hundreds of obsessively cut-out, brightly coloured paper daisies. Forrest seems to have created a shrine devoted to a capricious fertility goddess. Her gaping mouth full of huge white teeth promises both pleasure and pain. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/shane-forrest-deface-20081114-gdt2r8.html
Forrest carefully slices and aggressively tears into thick chunks of posters. The results of this inquisitive probing resemble streetwise geological samples with a pop-art edge. Colourful layers of strata are exposed, revealing the city's not-so-distant entertainment and advertising past.
Some famous faces are still recognisable despite being scarred by the artist's investigations. In Foxy Joan, '80s small-screen queen Joan Collins, as immortalised by art great Andy Warhol, is pierced by hundreds of dots. Niko Bellic, the square-jawed thug from video game Grand Theft Auto IV, glowers at himself in Dual Duel. In Hunted, his face is peeled back to reveal painted glistening steaks, his inner meathead.
Elsewhere in Deface, Forrest adds as well as subtracts. In Busy, a pretty boy, who may or may not be a young version of Aussie actor Matt Day, has a swarm of glittery beetle stickers covering his face.
In Sink, Forrest pumps up the volume on the advertising industry's already deafening rallying cry "Sex sells". He reduces a huge poster of a woman to just a giant mouth, flipped sideways - so that her parted glistening lips are highly suggestive of another body part - and surrounded by a collage of hundreds of obsessively cut-out, brightly coloured paper daisies. Forrest seems to have created a shrine devoted to a capricious fertility goddess. Her gaping mouth full of huge white teeth promises both pleasure and pain. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/shane-forrest-deface-20081114-gdt2r8.html
2007
de-facing the street, catalogue essay J.Naylor, osaka japan 16 – 28 April, 2007
De- Facing the Street16 April – 28 April, 2007
De-Facing the street is the theme and title chosen by Shane Forrest for his solo exhibition at OU Gallery, Osaka, from the 16th to 28th April, 2007.
The title refers both to the anonymous act of ‘vandalizing’ walls and hoardings with posters and other forms of ephemeral communication such as stenciling that is commonplace in urban areas worldwide and to Forrest’s art practice of removing sections of the street posters, in the case of this exhibition particularly those containing faces, thus an act of de-facing.
Further, having de-faced the street, Forrest then ‘defaces’ the unknown and famous visages he has collected. He rips, tears, gouges and incises into these slabs made up from layers of forgotten and superseded messages in a process called decollage reminiscent of the methods invented by artists such as Raymond Hains, Mimmo Rotella and Jacques Villeglé.
Forrest’s practices are historically connected to the Nouveaux Realists (1960 -1963) and Hains’ particular “affichist” conceptual concern for engaging with the unspectacular. What distinguishes Forrest from these earlier decollage practitioners is the variety of ways he has developed and continues to develop, to interact with his chosen medium. Collaged outbreaks of floral measles encrust sections of the surface or burst through cracks and crevices, embedded lolly foil glitters from below the surface and stamped and stenciled motifs hover on the posters’ surface.
In our first world of global overconsumption, it is warming, in a heartening way, to notice the resources used by Forrest to produce these vibrant, visceral and polysemous artworks.
Jane Naylor
De-Facing the street is the theme and title chosen by Shane Forrest for his solo exhibition at OU Gallery, Osaka, from the 16th to 28th April, 2007.
The title refers both to the anonymous act of ‘vandalizing’ walls and hoardings with posters and other forms of ephemeral communication such as stenciling that is commonplace in urban areas worldwide and to Forrest’s art practice of removing sections of the street posters, in the case of this exhibition particularly those containing faces, thus an act of de-facing.
Further, having de-faced the street, Forrest then ‘defaces’ the unknown and famous visages he has collected. He rips, tears, gouges and incises into these slabs made up from layers of forgotten and superseded messages in a process called decollage reminiscent of the methods invented by artists such as Raymond Hains, Mimmo Rotella and Jacques Villeglé.
Forrest’s practices are historically connected to the Nouveaux Realists (1960 -1963) and Hains’ particular “affichist” conceptual concern for engaging with the unspectacular. What distinguishes Forrest from these earlier decollage practitioners is the variety of ways he has developed and continues to develop, to interact with his chosen medium. Collaged outbreaks of floral measles encrust sections of the surface or burst through cracks and crevices, embedded lolly foil glitters from below the surface and stamped and stenciled motifs hover on the posters’ surface.
In our first world of global overconsumption, it is warming, in a heartening way, to notice the resources used by Forrest to produce these vibrant, visceral and polysemous artworks.
Jane Naylor
de-facing the street, japnese catalogue osaka japan 16 – 28 April, 2007
シェーン・フォレスト個展「デフェイス」平成19年4月16-28日
「デフェイス」は、シェーン・フォレストが4月16日から28日まで大阪のギャルリ・ウーで開かれる個展のために選んだテーマとタイトルです。
「デフェイス」は二つの意味で使われています。ひとつは、世界中の都市で見られるように、塀や建設現場の囲いに落書きしたりポスターを貼ったりして街の景観を損なう行為、もうひとつは、街頭に幾重にも貼られた興行宣伝ポスターの部分を剥ぎ取って使うフォレストの制作方法です。この展覧会では特にポスターの「顔」の部分を切り取って使っているので、フェイスを破壊する、つまり「デフェイス」です。
フォレストは、景観を損なうポスターを街頭から剥ぎ取り(デフェイス)、街頭からポスターの「顔」を取り去り(デフェイス)、これらの幾重にも貼られて板状になったポスターを破り、穴を掘り、えぐる作業を通じてポスターの有名無名の顔を破壊する(デフェイス)します。この手法はデコラージュと呼ばれ、レイモンド･ハインズ、ミンモ・ロテッラ、ジャック・ヴィルグレなどが始めました。
歴史的にみると、この表現法は1960-63年にフランスでおこった新リアリズムの流れ、特に日常的なるものに焦点を当てるハインズの観念芸術につながるものですが、フォレストの作品の独自性は、彼が素材と取り組む手法を常に発展させていることにあります。フォレストの作品では、小さな花のコラージュがデコラージュされたポスターの顔を湿疹のように覆ったり、層の割れ目から飛び出したり、あるいはキャンディーの包み紙の破片がきらきらと覗いたり、判や型紙のモチーフが表面に押されたりして素材を展開させていきます。
人々に見捨てられる素材を直感的に生かし、力強く多面的な作品を生み出すフォレストのアートは、過剰消費の先進国にあって、心温まる感動を見る人に与えます。
ジェーン･ネイラー
「デフェイス」は、シェーン・フォレストが4月16日から28日まで大阪のギャルリ・ウーで開かれる個展のために選んだテーマとタイトルです。
「デフェイス」は二つの意味で使われています。ひとつは、世界中の都市で見られるように、塀や建設現場の囲いに落書きしたりポスターを貼ったりして街の景観を損なう行為、もうひとつは、街頭に幾重にも貼られた興行宣伝ポスターの部分を剥ぎ取って使うフォレストの制作方法です。この展覧会では特にポスターの「顔」の部分を切り取って使っているので、フェイスを破壊する、つまり「デフェイス」です。
フォレストは、景観を損なうポスターを街頭から剥ぎ取り(デフェイス)、街頭からポスターの「顔」を取り去り(デフェイス)、これらの幾重にも貼られて板状になったポスターを破り、穴を掘り、えぐる作業を通じてポスターの有名無名の顔を破壊する(デフェイス)します。この手法はデコラージュと呼ばれ、レイモンド･ハインズ、ミンモ・ロテッラ、ジャック・ヴィルグレなどが始めました。
歴史的にみると、この表現法は1960-63年にフランスでおこった新リアリズムの流れ、特に日常的なるものに焦点を当てるハインズの観念芸術につながるものですが、フォレストの作品の独自性は、彼が素材と取り組む手法を常に発展させていることにあります。フォレストの作品では、小さな花のコラージュがデコラージュされたポスターの顔を湿疹のように覆ったり、層の割れ目から飛び出したり、あるいはキャンディーの包み紙の破片がきらきらと覗いたり、判や型紙のモチーフが表面に押されたりして素材を展開させていきます。
人々に見捨てられる素材を直感的に生かし、力強く多面的な作品を生み出すフォレストのアートは、過剰消費の先進国にあって、心温まる感動を見る人に与えます。
ジェーン･ネイラー
translation into English
Shane Forrest solo exhibition ‘De-facing the street ’
‘De-face’ is the theme and title chosen by Shane Forrest for his solo exhibition at OU Gallery, Osaka, from 16th to 28th April [I omitted the year as it is already stated]
‘De-face’ here has two meanings. One is the act of vandalising fences and hoardings with graffiti [I omitted ‘ephemeral communication such as stencilling’ because it may not always be ‘vandalism’] or by pasting posters. The other is Forrest’s art practice of removing promotion/advertising posters and using them. In this exhibition in particular, he uses the ‘faces’ in the posters: hence ‘deface’ – destruction of the face.
Forrest removes posters, the blot on the landscape (deface), takes away the ‘faces’ from the street (deface). Then, he tears [same as ‘rips’], gouges and incises into these slabs made up from layers, thus destroying the faces (deface) of famous and unknown people [I added this to emphasise the ‘face’, while omitting ‘forgotten and superseded messages’ for the sake of simplicity]. This process is called decollage, and was begun by artists such as Raymond Hains, Mimmo Rotella and Jacques Villeglé.
Historically, his method is linked to the Nouveau Realism that occurred in France in 1960-63, particularly to Hains’s conceptual art that focuses on objects of the everyday, but Forrest’s originality is that he constantly develops the method in which he engages with his material. In his works, for example, small flowers are collaged over the faces like measles or burst through cracks, pieces of lolly foils peep through the surfaces, and stamped and stenciled motifs are applied, thus continually developing his expression.
Forrest’s art thus instinctively enlivens the material that people overlooks and disregards, and creates vibrant and polysemous artworks, which, in the developed countries in which over-consumption is the way of life, moves people in a heartwarming way.
‘De-face’ is the theme and title chosen by Shane Forrest for his solo exhibition at OU Gallery, Osaka, from 16th to 28th April [I omitted the year as it is already stated]
‘De-face’ here has two meanings. One is the act of vandalising fences and hoardings with graffiti [I omitted ‘ephemeral communication such as stencilling’ because it may not always be ‘vandalism’] or by pasting posters. The other is Forrest’s art practice of removing promotion/advertising posters and using them. In this exhibition in particular, he uses the ‘faces’ in the posters: hence ‘deface’ – destruction of the face.
Forrest removes posters, the blot on the landscape (deface), takes away the ‘faces’ from the street (deface). Then, he tears [same as ‘rips’], gouges and incises into these slabs made up from layers, thus destroying the faces (deface) of famous and unknown people [I added this to emphasise the ‘face’, while omitting ‘forgotten and superseded messages’ for the sake of simplicity]. This process is called decollage, and was begun by artists such as Raymond Hains, Mimmo Rotella and Jacques Villeglé.
Historically, his method is linked to the Nouveau Realism that occurred in France in 1960-63, particularly to Hains’s conceptual art that focuses on objects of the everyday, but Forrest’s originality is that he constantly develops the method in which he engages with his material. In his works, for example, small flowers are collaged over the faces like measles or burst through cracks, pieces of lolly foils peep through the surfaces, and stamped and stenciled motifs are applied, thus continually developing his expression.
Forrest’s art thus instinctively enlivens the material that people overlooks and disregards, and creates vibrant and polysemous artworks, which, in the developed countries in which over-consumption is the way of life, moves people in a heartwarming way.
2006
float, aRTLINK article by Tracey Clement
Article Indexhttp://www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=2944Shane Forrest: Float A-Space on Cleveland Sydney November 8-15, 2006
Like every adolescent boy that has ever fantasied about owing a pair of X-ray specs, Shane Forrest has imagined peering through the walls of other’s peoples houses. In Float, Forrest depicts a bug’s eye view of what goes on behind closed doors in an average suburban Aussie street. And, just as twelve year old boys everywhere have always suspected, the couples inside are getting down to business.Of course this really comes as no surprise. All serious students of pop culture know that cul-de-sac culture is a hot bed of sex. We read all about it in the steamed-up pages of pulp fiction or in more highbrow tales of a bored and lascivious middle class by literary luminaries such as John Updike. In paintings of cosy and familiar rooms, Balthus draped young girls in seductive poses over upholstered furniture, while in Edward Hopper’s sun drenched interiors everyone seems transfixed by a kind of post-coital melancholy. From the manicured lawns of TV’s Desperate Housewives, to Charlotte Haze’s modest backyard in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, or Jacqueline Susan’s Valley of the Dolls, the landscape of the burbs is made for love, or something like it. Shane Forrest adds another chapter to this tradition, treading the tricky, and well-trodden, fine line between art and pornography. In the majority of his thirty views of typical Sydney homes, couples are doing the wild thing. If nobody is home, sex is usually still on the agenda: porno plays on the telly, or collaged novelty playing cards left lying around give full frontal views of bodacious babes fingering themselves.
Each of Forrest’s artworks resembles a doll’s house post-cyclone: collapsed, flattened, and skewed. Some are literally folded into sculptural wall hangings, while others are two dimensional works on paper, but all of them afford simultaneous glimpses of interior and exterior. Forrest combines layers of painting, drawing, photography and collage to accentuate his visual strategy of multiple perspectives. In the tradition of Indian/Pakistani miniature panting, he has paid loving attention to decorative surfaces. Brick walls, fake wood paneling, chequerboard lino, Persian carpets and floral wallpapers are rendered in detail and sometimes supplemented by swatches of the real thing. Forrest also takes care to point out each home’s assets, from two car garages to spacious bathrooms and built-in swimming pools.
In fact, the titles in Float, phrases like Semi Detached Original Features, Old World Charm, Over Sized Living Under-priced Luxury, read like a list of real estate huckster clichés. Forrest clearly has a cheeky sense of humour and a social conscience. He seems intent on poking fun at a property obsessed middle class, keen on ‘keeping up with the Jones’ by conspicuously displaying one more satellite dish, BMW, or shabby chic renovation; a morally deficient culture that defines itself by what it consumes rather than its ideals.Maybe Forrest’s frisky couples are a reminder that there are more important things in life, things like love, lust and making babies? Interestingly, the work titled Our House is one of the most chaste. Nobody is home at Forrest's house, and nothing remotely saucy is going on. Perhaps he has neighbours who bang the bed-springs at full volume 24/7, driving him to a raging, jealous insomnia, and these works are a form of catharsis? Then again Forrest may just be fixated on sex.
Either way, I find it unnerving that in Forrest’s work, only heterosexuals seem to be getting any action. Although some women are seeing to themselves, leaving their sexual orientation open to interpretation, there aren’t any same sex pairings, or even men flying solo, a statistical improbability to say the very least. Are there no loved up queers in Forrest’s virtual community? And, call me old-fashioned, but Forrest’s tiny portraits of people in Karma Sutra poses distract me from the quirky charm and political subtlety of his complex compositions. But I guess sex is distracting, maybe this is the point?
https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/2944/shane-forrest/
2004
outside interference, smh article by Dominique Angeloro
Joan of Art October 8, 2004Miss Collins goes under the knife in Shane Forrest's poster-inspired show. Dominique Angeloro reports.OUTSIDE INTERFERENCEWhere: A-Space on Cleveland, 420 Cleveland Street, Surry HillsWhen: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-5.30pm, until October 16More information: 9698 5156
It's not often you get to view art fitting for the design of an '80s sweatshirt. But the giddy colour assault of Shane Forrest's exhibition Outside Interference provides such a joy. This solo show at A-Space on Cleveland is a combination of attention-seizing works on paper and a series of perforated wooden sculptures. Forrest is a Sydney artist who scavenges public spaces for billboard posters, which he gathers into orderly heaps. Then he slices into the thick piles in search of visual riches. The resulting compositions could be thought of as delirious maps of popular culture. Curiously, much of the excavated paper is fluorescent, marking all the works with a dizzy mix of clashing colour. The artist deliberately flirts with overkill, at times even embedding his eye-candy compositions with found items such as a chocolate wrapper. But what's particularly interesting about these poster works is that Forrest experiments with a variety of methods of paper mutilation.
The surface has been roughly torn away in works such as Data Ribbons and Broadcast. They resemble rugged flags, with horizontal strips ripped from their surfaces producing jagged bands of colour.However, in other instances Forrest displays an obsessive attention to detail, engraving intricate patterns with carefully controlled scalpel incisions. In Rolling Joan, a poster of an Andy Warhol screen print is posed as the surface image of the work. Joan Collins's face has been cut into, with severe slivers of paper extracted from the image. The decorative contours seem laced with violence, winking at Collins's love affair with the cosmetic surgeon's knife.
Alternatively, a number of works have been embellished with cut-out daisy shapes that recall the craftiness of floral decoupage. In All Over Pattern Cuppa, Forrest turns up his kitsch value by constructing a three-dimensional cup and saucer out of these daisy chains.The freestanding sculptural pieces that accompany the wall works continue Forrest's aesthetic obsession with pierced surfaces and dissolving boundaries. These works are model mock-ups of proposed large-scale sculptural projects. Crafted from punctured panels of white painted wood, these forms appear to take inspiration from disintegrated human silhouettes.
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/joan-of-art-20041008-gdjvlf.html
outside interference @ oPERA hOUSE gALLERY, ARTICLE by Ann Loxley
Outside Interference at the Opera House Gallery
When Shane Forrest was a boy, televisions weren’t the sleek commodities they are in 2004. Reception was variable and the screened image was prone to disintegrate into rolling distortion. This flickering corruption of the image made a profound impact - several decades later the artist cites the televisual dysfunction as a major influence on the perceptual processes at work in his large-scale collages.
More precisely, Forrest’s idiosyncratic practice relies not only on collage, but also on the much rarer French tradition of de-collage, or cutting into the paper layers. The artist chooses to re-work scavenged street and billboard posters. Consequently there is a deliciously random quality to Forrest’s subject matter, as it reflects what he’s been able to find on Sydney’s hoardings and streets.
Sydney Morning Herald art critic Dominique Angeloro recently pronounced Forrest’s Outside Interference series as ‘delirious maps of popular culture’. In the current series, pop star of the moment Holly Valance features in Holly Holly Holly and also Six Eyes and Two Mouths, while popular culture perennial Joan Collins is transformed in Rolling Joan. And they are indeed ‘delirious’ –densely built layers of paper are torn and cut into so that in the case of Six Eyes and Two Mouths, the pop princess’s features disintegrate. The iconic Warhol poster which forms the basis of Rolling Joan remains recognisable, nevertheless Forrest’s knife has inscribed it with curving ribbons of colour – transforming the pop icon into an ‘op pop’ icon.
Forrest sees his collage/de-collage practice as an extension of painting, which he describes as a matter of ‘layering and scratching away’. His interest in the ‘tension between ground and figure’, and his ‘drive to integrate the two’ reflect a couple of timeless concerns for painters. We would do well to remember that these strangely alluring works which force reflection on perceptual and optical processes have their origins in a 1960s rolling television screen.
When Shane Forrest was a boy, televisions weren’t the sleek commodities they are in 2004. Reception was variable and the screened image was prone to disintegrate into rolling distortion. This flickering corruption of the image made a profound impact - several decades later the artist cites the televisual dysfunction as a major influence on the perceptual processes at work in his large-scale collages.
More precisely, Forrest’s idiosyncratic practice relies not only on collage, but also on the much rarer French tradition of de-collage, or cutting into the paper layers. The artist chooses to re-work scavenged street and billboard posters. Consequently there is a deliciously random quality to Forrest’s subject matter, as it reflects what he’s been able to find on Sydney’s hoardings and streets.
Sydney Morning Herald art critic Dominique Angeloro recently pronounced Forrest’s Outside Interference series as ‘delirious maps of popular culture’. In the current series, pop star of the moment Holly Valance features in Holly Holly Holly and also Six Eyes and Two Mouths, while popular culture perennial Joan Collins is transformed in Rolling Joan. And they are indeed ‘delirious’ –densely built layers of paper are torn and cut into so that in the case of Six Eyes and Two Mouths, the pop princess’s features disintegrate. The iconic Warhol poster which forms the basis of Rolling Joan remains recognisable, nevertheless Forrest’s knife has inscribed it with curving ribbons of colour – transforming the pop icon into an ‘op pop’ icon.
Forrest sees his collage/de-collage practice as an extension of painting, which he describes as a matter of ‘layering and scratching away’. His interest in the ‘tension between ground and figure’, and his ‘drive to integrate the two’ reflect a couple of timeless concerns for painters. We would do well to remember that these strangely alluring works which force reflection on perceptual and optical processes have their origins in a 1960s rolling television screen.