Reflections on the Banal
No Cigarettes, No Sleep, Peter Phobia’s solo exhibition at Project Room HilgerNEXT, marks the continuation of the cycle titled "The False Stories I Tell Myself". Through the use of charcoal and predominantly pink acrylic paint on paper, Peter Phobia composes a bric-a-brac of sceneries and situations depicting the fable of the American Dream.
(Text by Pedro Henrique de Melo)
Peter Phobia brings a sense of eeriness to such over-used imagery of the American life style, forcing the viewer to analyze the false sense of nostalgia and familiarity those images bring. By questioning the relationship between text and image, the viewer is forced to contemplate the shallowness of remembrances that were only imprinted in most of us due to the work of mass media and cultural consumption.
Be it by using his own handwriting or by leaving the correction marks apparent on the final product, Peter Phobia succeeds in denouncing the carefully elaborated illusion of hermetic aesthetics in advertisement and its role in manufacturing cultural cohesion.
The layout of Peter Phobia’s drawings are also designed to propitiate this reflection on the banal: an emulation of ready-made “image-headline-text” formula of print media – above all 1960’s advertisements – his baroque distribution of pictures and text creates what could be called “nihilist advertisement”, the publicity of no product.
Peter Phobia sees himself as a collector of absurd moments in life and describes his art as sketched insights of everyday life - inviting the viewers to reflect on their life with mood, humour and partially with its absurdity. Apart from solo and group exhibitions the artist and illustrator works and lives in Vienna, loves golfing and bananas and also is active as street artist (thegap, June, 2016).
Location:
HilgerNEXT, Project Room @ NEXT
Absberggasse 27
1100 Vienna
+43 1 512 53 15 200
katrin.dworczak@hilger.at
Exhibition opening:
26.01.2017, 19.00
Exhibition duration:
27.01. – 25.03.2017
Opening times:
Do – Sa: 12.00 – 18.00