Phantasmal Gallery
Phantasmal Gallery
Frank Boyce
Aroundandaround
Oil and Acrylic on board
40x30x4cm
2023
The central figure in 'Aroundandaround' is at the centre of tyre marks which result from 'Diffing' or driving a car around at high speeds in a semi controlled spin usually at crossroads. 'Diffing' is common on rural Irish roads late at night and is both a right of passage and n act of rebellion for Young People especially young men from disadvantaged backgrounds. Many young men lose their lives each year . The masked figure wears a 'Mummer' Mask this is a link with the past , he is remnant or a ghost from a now disappeard past when young people used to meet and dance at the crossroads. The dogs represnt a memory for me , my uncle had a sheep dog who would spin around and around in circles when we would be leaving my grandmothers house in our car. My Father said something in the pitch of the engine noise would affect the dogs brain.
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A Little Bit About The Artist
A Statement From The Artist
The Artist's current work relates to the human condition in the current age of technological advancement,climate crisis, economic crisis and hybrid digital existence. The aim of the work is to evoke a sense of displacement in the viewer to convey a feeling of disintegration and disruption of the self. The Artist is interested in going beyond pictorial representation and creating a ‘sensation’ in the viewer through the device of disturbing the perception of the viewer and so evoking in them a feeling of the uncanny.
The figures in this body of work hover somewhere at the edges of visual perception. These figures which are created using traditional techniques from digitally manipulated source material and are fragmented, distorted and disrupted , existing in different planes the figures appear and disappear in a constant flow of content.
The artist's work explores the place of the individual within this context where nothing is certain and all is flux.
How will human beings adapt to living both in the real world and the digital world?The Artist is interested in these questions and how we engage with digital technologies and applications in the future and in turn how will that change human existence?
What freedoms will we lose ,what freedoms are we willing to sacrifice?
Questions about the freedom of the individual in the collective of society is a constant stimulus for the artist and a recurring theme in his work.
The artist is concerned with the commodification of freedom and how we in the West trade the freedom of other human beings in other countries for geopolitical concerns, cheap goods, energy and narrow nationalistic political self interest.
Whats your favourite monster and why?
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Human kind​
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Do you like scary movies? And if so which ones?
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My favourite films are ones that explore the human psyche and where it interacts with the 'other' or the Eerie. Films like Kubriks ' The Shining' or Hitchcock's the Birds or 'Don't Look Now'.
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