Peering through the rainforest canopy, foreign noises, sights and smells overwhelm the senses. Enter a lush, seductive place teeming with life, colour and vibrancy. Welcome to Paradise.

Paradise is the culmination of the search for a place or condition of happiness and contentment. Phantom Paradise – A Tropical Abyss charts the quest for the ideal through the metaphor of the rainforest, while exploring myth, illusion and the ephemeral nature of our being.

The allure of a Phantom Paradise is the way it exists as a space entirely constructed from an individual’s projected desires and ideals. As we navigate this realm, we are tantalised by the prospect of what lies in its darkly sensual depths. The Tropical Abyss is an unchartered zone offering an endless scope of possibilities. Amidst this Amazonian utopia we seek to pursue fleeting notions and illusions of beauty in our search deep into our unconscious, dreamlike state.

Flashes of movement, shifting light and changing colours embody the richness of the real and imagined environment. The mesmerising ecology of the rainforest has inspired the work of artists who employ a palette drawn from the forest floor, fauna and flora. Tonal greens and tropical brights evoke the moist and heated environment filled with tropical flowers and strange creatures of paradise. Organic ceramic forms evoke seed-bearing plants and knotted vines, and lavish brush strokes and evocative photography capture the fecundity of the forest floor and the fragility of existence.

This journey into a Phantom Paradise can be traced through the flight of a rainforest butterfly. Through it’s metamorphic phases, the Blue Morpho butterfly embodies transformation and transience. Its fleeting beauty lies in its vibrant colour, which is the result of iridescence, a scientific phenomenon whereby certain surfaces appear to change colour with shifting view points. A magical moment of illusion, witnessed in paradise.

‘When I go into the glass houses and I see strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream ’- Henri Rousseau, 1844- 1910

Phantom Paradise – A Tropical Abyss 2nd June – 12th June 2016

A Group Show – Curated by Kitty Wong

Lilli Waters – Photography

Aedan Harris – Ceramics

Amy Wright – Painting

Pascale Boulle – Painting

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