Peter Leigh
The New Wilderness
October 4th – 21st, 2023
This body of work forms part of an ongoing investigation into the use of internet search metrics as the basis for making non-objective paintings.
The paintings are generated from fragments of visualised data based on global internet search activity for trending news events. Each painting is constructed according to an algorithm that determines the location, orientation, size and colour for each fragment on the canvas. In turn, these constraints provide the freedom to explore a variety of dualities in non-objective painting: rigid structure and improvisation; flatness and depth; the mechanical and the handmade; movement and stasis; durations of time; similarity and variation.
This exhibition alludes to notions of access, control, and manipulation of information in the context of our hyper-mediated age. It not only raises questions about the fragmentation and commodification of our attention, but also asks the viewer to slow down and consider the way we consume digital information through different spaces and times.
