The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is pleased to present All Things Fall, a solo exhibition featuring the work of contemporary British artist Mat Collishaw, from April 20th, 2023, to May 21st, 2023. The exhibit will be held at Bomb Factory Art Foundation’s newest building in Marylebone. 

Mat Collishaw is one of the most significant and compelling artists in contemporary British art. With an early foundation at Goldsmiths College, Collishaw formed part of the legendary movement of Young British Artists. He was one of 16 young artists who participated in the seminal Freeze exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988 as well as the provocative Sensation show of 1997. 

The Bomb Factory Art Foundation show will feature two works that have never been exhibited before, Insilico (2023) and the Palantir (2022) series of 13 paintings. The large-scale zoetrope sculpture, All Things Fall (2014), will be shown in London for the first time. The Machine Zone (2019), inspired by the historic behavioural experiments of the psychologist B.F. Skinner, has previously been exhibited in the UK and internationally in Moscow & Dubai.

The selected works reflect on human perception distorted through the dark, manipulative lens of social media. Insilico’s robotic stag slips and falls in response to abusive posts on Twitter. Night vision images of animator predators and prey appear as ghost-like spectres in the Palantir paintings on raw linen. In The Machine Zone, animatronic pigeons re-enact the behavioural psychology experiments of B.F. Skinner. Finally, in the gripping and powerful All Things Fall, a Temple featuring the Massacre of the Innocents erupts into a delightful orgy of violence. Mat Collishaw’s world consumes and captivates. 

Throughout his 30-year career, Collishaw has contemplated the nature of the human subconscious and explored ways to influence it through various media. Through optical illusions, paintings, projections and moving sculptures, the artist creates works and scenarios that directly and unconsciously engage their viewers. The works encourage us to think about fundamental questions of psychology, history, sociology and science. Behind the richness and visual appeal of each work there is a deep exploration of how we perceive and are influenced by the world through images, and modern technology. Questions regarding behavioural manipulation and programming linger in the viewing experience.

The majority of works in the exhibition emerged early during lockdown when everything outdoors fell silent and people turned to social media to make a noise. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram increasingly became forums for attack, platforms used to hunt and take people down. 

A primal herd instinct reared its beastly head through the medium of digital technology. Like our online records, the artworks attempt to capture a fleeting, furtive moment of disquiet; a shadowy record of the predator and its prey.

Mat Collishaw

Founded by artist Pallas Citroen in 2015, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is a charity that provides affordable studio spaces to over 100 resident artists and delivers free public educational programs and exhibitions for the local communities of London. The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is a cultural art destination that is based across four sites; Archway, Chelsea, Covent Garden and now Marylebone. 

‘Mat Collishaw has always been an artist I have held in the highest esteem. I was, therefore, thrilled when Mat agreed to exhibit with the Bomb Factory Art Foundation at our new gallery space at 206 Marylebone Road . Bomb Factory Marylebone heralds in a new era for the Bomb Factory Art Foundation; where we will endeavour to bring in new audiences to witness exhibitions by emerging, as well as established artists. We will facilitate the merging of partnerships between these artists to encourage the production of new works that will add to the roster of urgent and thought provoking exhibitions that Bomb Factory has, and will continue to put on for the public. We can’t wait to see what this season will hold’ 

Pallas Citroen, Founder of The Bomb Factory Foundation

With special thanks to BHive Technologies who designed and developed AI and machine learning models to collect and analyze the data, leveraging top rated OpenAI-developed engines. 

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