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Hadleigh Averill (New Zealand) |
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Artist Statement
Working in a wide range of media from performance to paintings, Averill makes small and large scale works that propose new ways for how the world around us might work when adopting a specific system of belief. Averill uses himself as a test subject for the exploration of belief systems inherent in 'the culture of the unknown;' the mystical, the metaphysical, the mythological, the mysterious, the intangible. He employs their inconclusive yet seductive ideologies as a means of navigating himself through the chaos of the world around him. Using ancient methods of defining how and when to position oneself in the world, Averill presupposes and predetermines a shared destiny, an interconnectedness, and goes about testing his findings through sociological experiments. As Averill progresses through his life and practice, his constructed identity functions to identify a sense of an I for both self and other. Everyone he chooses to function with, has their identity brought into question as a result of the conflicting beliefs that inevitably ensue. Everyone is part of his grand sociological experiment and accordingly, everyone is subject to the successes and failures of the experiments conducted. Averill's large scale projects seek to illustrate what it means to build a system of belief and what fuels a belief by working with mainstream 'belief generators' such as advertising agencies, to develop ideas that are potentially irrational, even doomed to fail but ideas that are seductive nonetheless. "It's like building a brand" Averill says; "Each new idea looks at how to integrate a particular system of belief into mainstream culture, resulting in the inevitable requirement of making that belief accessible to others." Each new belief zone stems from a series of what if's, resulting in a carefully constructed performative representation of Hadleigh Averill, guided by a set of ancient prototypes and systems that enable that model to work in present day society...or does it? The contexts in which these ancient, |
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Biography
SOLO EXHIBITIONS GROUP EXHIBITIONS AWARDS/GRANTS/SCHOLARSHIPS INTERVIEWS/PUBLICATIONS |
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