HIROKI TSUKUDA – THEY LIVE
2020-03-09In reference to John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic film with the same name, They Live presents a dystopian reality whereby current society has become surreptitiously controlled by humanoid extraterrestrials. Enamored by sci-fi since early childhood, Tsukuda has drawn inspiration from dystopic thrillers, apocalyptic novels, and cyberpunk manga. These fictions have percolated into the artist’s consciousness, transforming his ideas and artistic practice.
Working in the realms of drawing and digital collage, Tsukuda creates multi-dimensional pictures by compositing a profusion of found and created images and coding them with computerized characters and cryptic hieroglyphics. The resulting images appear in states of controlled chaos and organic mutation, edging on a pictorial language that merges cyberpunk fantasy and real-life space exploration. Some of these abstractions hang off of large hollow wooden enclosures while a set of four bionic figures suspend from vacant steel-pipe scaffolds. Rocks, driftwood, and other organic materials are presented on wooden shelves alongside these cybernetic environments.
Opposite – Neon Demon, 2019
Exhibition runs through to April 18th, 2020
Petzel Gallery
456 West 18th Street
New York
NY 10011
