gobscure: is that a bruise or a tattoo?

This is gobscure’s first exhibition in Italy. Going by the artist name ‘gobscure’, the self-taught artist living in Newcastle (U.K.) is also a writer, performer and activist. For his exhibition in Venice he is presenting an audio piece that was commissioned by the gallery, a new photographic series, a poem, and sculpture.

The main body of work in the exhibition is the photographic series, entitled …ov glass & were aching to… (2018). This uses portraiture and self-portraiture as its starting point – where the artist takes a photo of his reflected hand and tattooed arm in the glass shop-front. The display is a male mannequin wearing a three piece suit and gaudy orange pocket square. gobscure challenges the idea of an inner and outer self, presenting a mannequin that seems more real and solid than the fleeting and weightless manifestation of the artist. The images are truly strange and transient things, evoking a myriad of immediate reactions: kitsch, sad, hopeful. There is also an air of theatre as the glass seems to act as a stage on which people going about their daily errands are faithfully reflected.