Labratory Of Material Slippage

"A Devil and a Witch Make a Nail," is a dramatic duo exhibition featuring the works of artists Vince Phan and Serena JV Elston. The title of the show draws inspiration from a 1700s woodcut, a relic that encapsulates the mystical collaboration between human and supernatural forces, crafting objects that defy the natural course of growth.

In his seminal work, "The Denial Of Death," cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker delves into the creation of such metaphorical objects, uncovering their existence within the tangible symbols of ideologies and relics. Within the realm of this exhibition, Vince and Serena embark on an exploration of this concept through the malleable nature of materials, traversing the boundaries between the organic, synthetic, and inanimate.

This artistic dialogue manifests as a dialectic, a dance between ephemerality and permanence, where the artists manipulate materials to breathe life into symbolic representations of immortality. The interplay between the biological and the inanimate serves as both the form and material, unveiling a profound exploration of content and object. The resulting structures become symbols of immortality, urging viewers to ponder questions of change that manifest on both a biological and political level.