Shane Forrest: 25 Years

Twenty-five years of Shane Forrest’s multidisciplinary practice is on display at Rogue Pop Up Gallery in Newtown. Forrest has been working with urban elements since the early 1980s and creates both 2D and 3D works informed by his environment and its inhabitants. He is interested in representing Sydney’s obsession with real estate and the often-unattainable dream of home ownership, particularly in his series ‘Porous Suburb’. Pulling imagery from the real estate promotions that fill his letterbox, Forrest creates delicate painted domestic scenes and reassembles them into collages that reveal multiple layers at once. The viewer can see both the exterior and interior of these Sydney houses, their carefully managed images disrupted and reimagined by Forrest, and the result only exacerbates their unattainability.

Estate Finalisation

Shane Forrest, Estate Finalisation 2014, reclaimed paper and canvas, acrylic paint, 61 x 51cm

Reclaimed slabs of street posters are his material of choice for the series ‘Consumer Robusta’, in which he works as an archeologist of paper to peel back layers of historical street art and advertising and redefine their imagery. His interest in the discarded and abandoned is a pillar of his practice, as Forrest produces his work with mainly reclaimed materials including old brushes and palettes and found canvases, paper and cardboard.

Aldi at 4am

Shane Forrest, Aldi at 4am 2016, Aldi brochures, reclaimed wood, varnish, 72 x 40 x 40cm

The aesthetic of dilapidation and destruction is carried on in his sculptural works, with many exploring a failure to be contained or controlled within themselves, while others are the aftermath of a rupture or explosion. Forrest uses the violence of these processes to give the viewer direct access to the inner layers of meaning imbued in his works.

Rogue Pop Up Gallery
21 August to 8 September 2019
Sydney

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