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26 July–19 August 2023

Annika Koops, Bad Actors

LON Gallery is thrilled to present a solo exhibition of new work by Naarm/Melbourne based artist, Annika Koops, on view between 26 July - 18 August. The exhibition comprises a suite of new paintings on linen and paper that continue the artist’s investigation into how subjecthood is distilled and reanimated via algorithmic processes.

“To be a bad actor in a theatrical sense is to fudge the role: to overact or take the viewer out of the scene. A bad actor in a moral context conjures a person or group with dubious motives.”

Annika Koops’ forthcoming exhibition re-stages painterly gestures to toy with the reciprocity between these meanings in the context of digital environments.

The paintings are a combination of spontaneous, abstract brushwork that is digitally modelled and run through simulations and rendering before being re-painted: bringing the original marks into contact with densely mediated versions of themselves. The spatial disorientation in the paintings reflect the privileging of appearances and rhetorical grift typical of online environments: when it is not possible to tell if something is made by a machine or human, the bad actor is both distant and ever present.

Double Binds #11 (Blue/Brown Swerve), 2023Oil on primed paper, framed50 × 70cm

Double Binds #16 (Green Swerve), 2023Oil on primed paperFramed 50 x 70cm

Double Binds #12 (Blue/Brown Rigid Swerves), 2023Oil on primed paperFramed 50 x 70cm

Double Binds #13 (Blue/Brown Circle Swerve), 2023Oil on primed paper, framed50 × 70cm

Double Binds #14 (Blue Mirrors), 2023Oil on primed paperFramed 50 x 70cm

Double Binds #15 (Blue 8), 2023Oil on primed paperFramed 50 x 70cm

Zip Ribbons (Ultra#1), 2023Oil on board in powder coated steel frame40 x 30cm

Zip Ribbons (Thin Lines), 2023Oil on linenFramed 50 x 70cm

Zip Ribbons (Bars), 2023Oil on linenFramed 50 x 70cm

Zip Ribbons (Discs), 2023Oil on linenFramed 50 x 70cm

Zip Ribbons (Squares), 2023Oil on linenFramed 50 x 70cm