Katja Novitskova - Blue Dots, Rings and Numbers - 2018
Katja Novitskova merges the natural world with the virtual by finding her source material online, reproducing it digitally and transforming into the physical via digital printing. Novitskova’s edition for the Whitechapel Gallery is one of her signature cut-out works, deriving from a visual sketch and printed directly on to di-bond - an aluminium composite material. Using image-editing software, Novitskova has collaged the image of a human brain onto the tentacles of a blue-ringed octopus to create a hybrid of cephalopod and anthropoid. The clusters of dots on the brain suggest the digital mapping of some kind of data. The overall image envisions a future of species adaptation and technological dominance.
Aluminium is the most abundant metal on earth but is almost never found in its elemental state. It’s reflective surface shines through the printed surface, giving the sculpture an iridescent quality and a futuristic, unmistakably manmade appearance.
Opting to take an image of an animal from the internet rather than from life, Novitskova is conscious of the way the natural world is mediated to us. The flatness of the cut-out sculpture references the digital screen through which we navigate the world now. Using a two-dimensional medium to portray what was once a three-dimensional body, the distinction between the natural world from its technological rendering is dissolved.
Medium: Digital print on dibond.
Size: 55 cm x 30 cm x 6 cm [21.7 x 11.8 x 2.4 in].
Edition of 13
Signed and numbered certificate
Price: £1500 incl. VAT (Members’ price: £1350)
This limited edition Katja Novitskova print is available at Whitechapel Gallery
Salvatore Arancio - Untitled - 2018
Salvatore Arancio’s edition for the Whitechapel Gallery resembles an exotic plant and was conceived as a smaller, younger relative of his large scale work created for the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition Surreal Science: Loudon Collection with Salvatore Arancio (25 August 2018 – 6 January 2019). Produced in two colour-ways in a total edition of 15, the form of each work is loosely inspired by the leaves of a Mandrake, a plant known for its anthropomorphic shape, hallucinogenic quality and popular mythologies.
The ceramic sculptures were created by Arancio whilst working at Ceramica Gatti in Faenza. Using special glazes and lustre each piece is fired three times in order to achieve an iridescence quality. In the exhibition the sculpture is placed above an anatomic bust, symbolising a sort of human’s metamorphosis but at the same time reimagining iconic drawings of Mandrake’s roots.
Through a process of mimesis and decontextualisation of unusual natural shapes, these ceramic sculptures expand Arancio’s interest in biomorphic forms. Arancio manipulates and re-invents memories of encounters with geological specimens, transforming them into grotesque and disturbing forms, suggestive of his reflections on natural phenomena.
Medium: Glazed ceramic
Size: 30 x 21 x 30 cm
Variable edition of 15 in two colourways (green and purple),
Signed and numbered certificate.
Produced by the artist with Ceramica Gatti, Faenza
Price: £950 (Whitechapel members £855)
These limited edition Salvatore Arancio sculptures are available at Whitechapel Gallery
