Gregory Bennett’s new work is situated in an art practice that embraces 3D computer animation to explore themes and tensions around nature and culture, and conceptions of the utopian and the dystopian, through the rendering of complex digital ecosystems. The works in Edifice are the latest in an ongoing series by the artist that imagine infinitely revolving structures situated in an infinite void. Homogeneous human figures appear as often precariously placed performers, enacting ritual-like scenarios, sometimes coalescing into complex moving ornaments trapped or enclosed in ceaseless loops and cycles in a form of animated stasis. The individual is collapsed into multiple uncanny digital doppelgangers, set in uncertain environments that simulate at times a machine in perpetual motion, without obvious purpose. The term ‘edifice’ can refer to both a large, imposing building, and a long-established complex system of beliefs. In these works the edifice is a permeable and provisional structure in a state of unstable flux, an embodiment of the fragility of utopian desire and contingency of human endeavour.
Edifice I (2020) Preview
Edifice II (2021) Preview
Embowered II (2021) Preview