Guy Denning | VERMIBUS “Tipping Point”

Tipping Point
Guy Denning | VERMIBUS

We come across the word tipping point more and more often in everyday life. It is mostly used in connection with the effects of human life on nature and the climate. The word also crops up time and again in discussions about changes in social interaction or shifts in the political climate towards extreme directions. Tipping points are described as threshold values after changes become irrevocable and extreme. We also find these in art. States from which a work significantly changes its meaning or visuality.
On display are works with charcoal, chalk and acrylic on paper by Guy Denning, as well as photographs manipulated with solvents by VERMIBUS.

Exhibition in Duesseldorf

VERMIBUS

VERMIBUS processes photographs with solvents. In doing so, he modifies their aesthetics and, of course, how they are perceived. Once started, the chemical process must be carefully dosed and then stopped at the right moment in order to achieve the result VERMIBUS wants.

The Spanish artist has been active as a so-called adbuster for many years. In protest against the proclaimed ideal of beauty in advertising, which has been perverted to perfection and only allows happiness as a result of supposed appearance, he removes advertising posters, alters the motifs in his studio and then hangs them in the same place again.
Today, VERMIBUS takes his own photographs, edits them in the same process and explores the thresholds at which the images significantly change their aesthetics and message.

Guy Denning 

We are also familiar with tipping points in our emotional world. Moments when a mood suddenly changes the situation completely. Although we are not yet fully aware of the intensifying emotion, it is often already visible and legible in the expression of the face and posture.
The English artist Guy Denning seeks out these expressions and shows them in his works. With his very typical and expressive painting technique, he captures the emotions of his protagonists and sometimes emphasises them with just a few striking strokes.

Guy Denning‘s works combine traditional and contemporary painting techniques. He uses charcoal and chalk, oil colours but also spray paint in his work. He adds an additional narrative with punk-inspired, collaged and stencilled text. His visual language and aesthetics, mixed with the political narrative that runs through his work, give his works an unusual power.

15th of November 2024 – 17th of  Januar 2025
Opening reception: Thurday  15th of November, 7pm

Pretty Portal
Brunnenstrasse 12
40223 Düsseldorf