Untitled #9 (2021)

Carlos Bunga makes structures and interventions out of everyday mass-produced materials such as cardboard, tape and household paint. His work is often site-specific, encouraging us to rethink the ways in which we experience architectural space and the world around us. Bunga’s practice is also inspired by his self-described nomadic lifestyle, drawing on his experiences of displacement, loss and movement.

Previously known for works which specifically explore urban space, architecture and mass-produced materials, he has more recently turned his attention to our destructive relationship with the natural world in order to consider ways forward and alternative ways to live; such as in his recent show at Whitechapel Gallery, London, where he considered the Shaker community.

In the sculptures commissioned for Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, fragments of nature, such as bark and twigs appear embedded in the works, as well as remnants of urban landscapes– bits of buildings, turrets and domes. Colours range from the organic to the garish, including pieces of bark and masonry paint and organic forms mashed up with urban debris.

These sculptures were commissioned by Glynn Vivian as part of its series of exhibitions entitled Conversations with the Collection in which the Gallery invites artists, curators, scientists, and communities to work with the permanent collection. For this exhibition, Bunga selected several historical landscape paintings mostly from the nineteenth century. Many of these are picturesque, romantic and idealised, containing elements of wildness, depicting a time just before or at the beginnings of the industrial revolution and the ravages of colonialism and late capitalism. Between the paintings and these strange sculptures we are invited to consider where we find ourselves in this time of crisis and to contemplate possible ways forward for humanity and the world.

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