Introduction
As removed as we are from the natural world, we seem intent on recreating a poor facsimile of it. Our cities are sprinkled with landscaped parks to which we descend at the first sign of sun. We drag our children to commune with nature, trapped behind the bars of zoos and petting farms. And some of us, lucky enough to have a scrap of land to call a garden, huddle around disposable barbecues and throw bits of burger bap at the pigeons.
Much like us, Slinkachu’s little people seek out these tiny oases within the city too. In Paradise we find one exploring a tropical waterfall worthy of an office motivational poster, if not for the discarded Sprite bottle that causes this ‘un-natural wonder’. In The Glade a tiny lady sits on a matchstick swing hung from an over-arching weed, a scene reminiscent of The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard and almost, but not quite, picturesque. In The Jetty, children frolic in a lake of melting ice-lolly, bringing to mind nostalgia for those long summer days of our youth – or perhaps a scene from a film we once saw, showing what our youth should have been.
Like the real-life enclaves of nature with our cities, these miniature ones are contrived and manufactured too. We can see tropes ripped from landscape paintings of the past such as the obsession with the idyllic pastoral scene, or the distant town nestled between the hills. Slinkachu also employs clichés from popular culture such as the rearing horse against a sunset, so often used in film and TV to signify a feeling of freedom and exultation at the end of an adventure. That the artist constructs these scenes through the tunnel-vision of a lens and the crop of an image only adds to the artificial nature of these miniature ‘hidden landscapes’.
The weeds though are real. So are the blackberries and blossoms and moss. Slinkachu highlights these things that we overlook. One can imagine that if we abandoned the city tomorrow, it wouldn’t take long for nature to begin reclaiming the urban landscape – those tiny weeds creeping up through the cracks in the pavement and slowly erasing all of our creations.
July
One Tree Hill, Honor Oak Park, London, 2014
C-type print on aluminium
53 x 100cm
Edition of 30 - £2,200 +VAT.
C-type print on aluminium
16 x 30 cm
Edition of 35 - £650 +VAT.
October
One Tree Hill, Honor Oak Park, London, 2014
C-type print on aluminium
53 x 100cm
Edition of 30 - £2,200 +VAT.
C-type print on aluminium
16 x 30cm
Edition of 35 - £650 +VAT.
January
One Tree Hill, Honor Oak Park, London, 2015
C-type print on aluminium
53 x 100cm
Edition of 30 - £2,200 +VAT.
C-type print on aluminium
16 x 30cm
Edition of 35 - £650 +VAT.
Back to Nature
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, London, 2014
C-type print on aluminium 70cm diameter
Edition of 15 - £2,900 +VAT.
20cm
Edition of 50 - £650 +VAT.
Giclée print on Somerset Photo Satin diameter (paper 30 x 30cm)
Foraging
Chiswick, London, 2014
Edition of 15 -
Edition
C-type print on aluminium with perspex facing 70cm diameter £2,800 +VAT. Giclée print on Somerset Photo Satin 20cm diameter (paper 30 x 30cm) of 50 - £650 +VAT.Landscape Painting
Landscape Painting
Parliament Hill, Hampstead, London, 2014
C-type print on aluminium with perspex facing 70cm diameter
Edition of 15 - £2,900 +VAT.
Giclée print on Somerset Photo Satin 20cm diameter (paper 30 x 30cm)
Edition of 50 - £650 +VAT.
The Glade
The Glade Crystal Palace, London, 2014
Edition
C-type print on aluminium with perspex facing 70cm diameter
of 15 - £2,900 +VAT.
Giclée print on Somerset Photo Satin 20cm diameter (paper 30 x 30cm)
Edition of 50 - £650 +VAT.
Puddles
Puddles
Victoria Park, Hackney, London, 2015
C-type print on aluminium with perspex facing 70cm diameter
Edition of 15 - £2,900 +VAT.
Giclée print on Somerset Photo Satin 20cm diameter (paper 30 x 30cm)
Edition of 50 - £650 +VAT.
Turning of the Seasons
Wandsworth, London, 2014
Edition
Edition
C-type print on aluminium with perspex facing 70cm diameter of 15 - £2,900 +VAT. Giclée print on Somerset Photo Satin 20cm diameter (paper 30 x 30cm) of 50 - £650 +VAT.
Fall
St. Johns Wood, London, 2014
180 x 120cm
Edition of 5 - £2,900 +VAT.
Giclée print on Somerset Photo Satin 80 x 53cm
Edition of 50 - £650 +VAT.
C-type print on aluminium with perspex facingThrough the Valley
Through the Valley Chiswick, London, 2014
C-type print on aluminium
180 x 99.5cm
Edition of 5 - £7,500 +VAT.
C-type print on aluminium
80 x 44cm
Edition of 30 - £1,800 +VAT.
