News | February 2012

Main Image: Air Farce One copyright TRXTR

Body of Art has the pleasure of recommending a wonderful exhibition by the artist known as Trxtr who has been building himself a very strong reputation on the Urban Art scene over the past five years, the evidence for this success being some recent notable auction results. He has shown his work in around the Bristol area and also in group shows in London and Los Angeles. This will be his first solo show in London.

Trxtr believes that in using a wide variety of techniques, he can create the effect of spontaneity and freedom that he is aiming for. His own (incomplete) list of techniques used ‘Chemical, digital and Polaroid photography, high resolution scans, large format archival printing, collage, painting, drawing’ says a lot about where he is coming from. This is not an artist who is wedded to any particular medium, but for him a rather more Machiavellian ‘ends justifies the means’ approach is favoured. He sees purist attitudes to techniques and mediums as ‘Ludditism’. ‘In a world where our senses are constantly over-stimulated with information and ever new technological image making methods, it seems not to embrace every method at our disposal would be to miss out on new possibilities. I am sure when new pigments were created during the renaissance some painters rejected the new colours as some how cheating. I am much more of the Hockney approach, embracing technology but I have to aknowlege that my techniques are informed by years of scrutinizing both ancient and modern painting ’. 

China Doll copyright TRXTR

The work Trxtr has produced for the ‘Pretty Lethal’ show at Signal is the culmination of this period of experimentation and creative self-discovery. The works will show us as an eclectic mix of atmospheres and emotions, as the techniques he uses to produce them. Their overall effect is disturbing and alluring in equal measure. Concerns about exploitation, globalization and corruption appear over and over again, but the tone is ambivalent. He is not preaching to us, but reproducing some of the sickly sweet images of commercialism in a way that it is genuinely hard to tell if he is celebrating them or railing against them. This interesting and unsettling approach has something of effect of Jeff Koons work. 

The works Trxtr has produced for the ‘Pretty Lethal’ will make a very strong introduction to his work for London audiences. Like Koons, we may find that audiences are split, between those who can and those who can’t see beyond the surface seductiveness of the work.

2nd March – 24th March  | Signal Gallery | London

www.signalgallery.com