West Eden Gallery presents new works by photojournalist-turned-visual artist Cedric Arnold during "Apopheniac", which is running until March 31.
His work begins with negatives from an earlier career as a photojournalist, appropriating the physical negative images and subverting their conventions through chemical and physical transformation.
The altered and disappearing patterns in the photographic emulsion blend moments together, re-script time and allow, through the flow of chemistry, for patterns to emerge where none might have ever existed.
The exhibition's title "Apopheniac" is an invented word and condition derived from apophenia -- the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas).
In an often desperate need to ascribe meaning and form a linear timeline of our lives, our narrating selves fuse together seemingly disjoined moments. This need for meaning often blurs the lines between reality and fiction.
From the perspective of logic, these are inaccuracies, human errors, glitches. Yet, they are a necessary shortcut to navigate both our outer and inner worlds, our subjective realities, our traumas.
Among the highlights of the exhibition are Inadvertent Icon and Apopheniac V, both pieces, by chance, pay homage to the master painters of the past.
A former documentarian from London, Arnold moved to Southeast Asia two decades ago and worked with the likes of Time Magazine, Sunday Times, HBO and Washington Post among others.
He combines his documentary background with experimental practices to explore themes relating to human perception of time, memory and reality, working with photography, immersive video and sound installations. His work has been exhibited internationally.
West Eden Gallery is on Sukhumvit 31 and opens Thursday to Sunday from 11am to 6pm.
Visit westedenbkk.com or call 082-112-4421.
