SERPENTS NEST, 2019 

SERPENTS NEST, 2019
2000 x 1500 mm
Oil, 3D modelling and and Digital Collage on Archival Paper on Board.

“Serpents’s nest” by South African artist duo, AD-Reflex, draws a parallel between the treacherous deceit that took place between Hercules and Altas, and contemporary debates between  painting  and technology, as well as the current digital dissemination of fake news.

In line with the underlying theme of this year’s Venice Biennale (curated by Ralph Rugoff), AD-Reflex responds to age-old problems of fake news, trickery and all forms of visual deception. The core of the work  is based on the bronze sculpture, “Hercules and Atlas”, by Michel Anguier (1668)  in the Louvre (Paris).

A ‘serpent’ refers to a snake, but also a sly or treacherous person, especially one who exploits a position of trust in order to betray it. In classical mythology, Hercules was required by Eurystheus to fetch the golden apples from the fabled gardens of the Hesperides, renowned for being sacred to Hera and guarded by the fearsome hundred-headed dragon, Ladon. Following the advice of Prometheus, Hercules asked Atlas to get him the apples while he, with the help of Athena, took the world onto his shoulders for a while, giving the Titan a welcome respite. When returning with the golden apples, Atlas was reluctant to reassume the burden of carrying the world. However, the wily Hercules tricked the god into swapping places temporarily while the hero got himself some cushions to more easily bear the tremendous weight.

Most art today deploys new technology at one if not most stages of its production, dissemination, and consumption. By combining traditional painting and cutting-edge technology in unexpected ways, AD-Reflex dissolves spatial boundaries between ‘printed’ and ‘painted’, representation and abstraction, to absorb a sublime sense of ‘everythingness’ all at once. The work embraces endless mimicry / trickery, where no clear distinction can be drawn separating the painterly from the digital, the tactile from the illusive. 

Based on an extremely slow process of artistic production, their effect is one of rapid visual overflow. To create them, AD-Reflex digitally composes a collage of images selected from their extensive visual archive. Combined with 3-D modelling techniques, the result gets printed onto archival paper (mounted on board), after which painting starts,  using a methodical process of layering that arrests the fleeting digital image.

In the world of AD-Reflex, everything can mix with everything; everything is possible and in perpetual transformation. Triviality mingles with glamour, banality with sophistication, and despair with beauty.