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Happy New Year!!! Friends, I am happy to introduce to you the work by British artist from London, Nick Gentry.

Much of Nick’s artistic output has been generated with the use of contributed artefacts and materials. He states that through this process “contributor, artist and viewer come closer together”. His art is influenced by the development of consumerism, technology, identity and cyberculture in society, with a distinctive focus on obsolete media.

“His paintings are at once archaeological and haunting…
a social art project that turns form and function inside out”

He is best known for his floppy disk paintings and film negative artworks, placing an emphasis on recycling obsolete media and the reuse of personal objects as a central theme. Such artistic works of social commentary have been featured in galleries in the UK, USA and in cities throughout the world.

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Artist Nick Gentry takes rolls of vintage negatives, piles of long-discarded computer disks and old x-ray results of rib cages and lodged nails … then brings new hi-tech humans to life.

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Lost Moments, 2012
Vintage film negatives, x-rays and oil on acrylic sheets

 

 

 

 

 

 

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D Base, 2013
Oil paint and used computer disks on wood
28cm x 36cm
Showing at SCOPE Miami Beach with Robert Fontaine Gallery
Featured in French national newspaper
Le Monde Diplomatique

Excerpt from interview: The floppy disk, with the increasing speed of technological advances these days, is almost considered “retro”. Is this use of recycling “obsolete media” a deliberate aspect to your work?
Nick:  Well it could be that everything becomes obsolete in time. By using a simple floppy disk, it’s just marking a point in time where things really changed, quite unlike anything that has ever happened before. I can’t say what it entirely represents but sometimes the most simple, mundane, everyday object can represent something more. It’s more about the way you regard something, rather than the object itself.

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Deja Vu, 2014
Oil paint and used computer disks on wood

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Capture, 2014
Film negatives and resin on a glass panel

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We were There, 2014
Film negatives and oil paint on glass panel
40cm x 60cm
Featuring in the Synthetic Daydreams solo exhibition at Robert Fontaine Gallery in Miami.

Excerpt of interview: What is it about the theme of reuse and recycling in your paintings that inspires you so much?
Nick:  The idea that really captivates me is history; or to be more precise, time. No matter how much we try to understand or preserve time by recording moments, it remains a complete mystery. Really our only way to make sense of the present is to reference the past, so I’m interested in the way time affects objects and our connections with those objects. I also find personal artefacts can come to possess unique energy. It feels authentic to assemble actual parts of history to form the basis of a portrait.

To read more about Nick Gentry, please visit here.

Our challenge is to be inspired by the creative work of Nick Gentry. You can also play with the idea of “creating art from obsolete media” or share your thoughts about consumerism, technology, identity and cyberculture in society, with a distinctive focus on obsolete media, or concept of time. Nick’s work is open for your own interpretation. Nick has given us permission to choose from among his work as inspiration for our words. If you decide to use his image/s in your blog, kindly provide credit and link back to his blog, http://www.nickgentry.com/

If you’re here for the first time, here’s how to participate:

  • Write a poem or prose poem, inspired by the work of Nick Gentry.   
  • Post it on your blog, and if you are using Nick’s image, link back to his site and give him credit for the image.
  • Click on the Mr. Linky button, insert your name and direct URL to your poem (not your blog).
  • If you use social media, use the tag #dversepoets or @dversepoets so we can find you and help with promotion.
  • Visit others that have taken the challenge as well.
  • Have fun!

 

I look forward to reading your words ~ Grace