Upstream Gallery proudly presents the new Upstream Focus exhibition showing new lead works by Frank Ammerlaan in the private viewing space.
Ammerlaan’s lead works are realised in a material that is contaminated with meaning, poisonous and alchemical. Lead, used as protection from radiation in hospitals and nuclear power plants, chemically is the end result of millions of years of decay of the unstable Uranium element. According to Ammerlaan, ‘physically the material is soft and seems to be as malleable as reality itself, whilst being used to protect the flesh against its former radioactive self’.
At the core of the artist's practice lies desire to capture the constant flux of our reality that goes beyond individual lives and knowledges and equally pertains to eternal processes on the cosmic scale. The transformations of matter and energy – such as ejection of heavy metal elements following a supernova explosion – can be traced in Ammerlaan’s works not only in the raw materials he uses, but also in their complex and nuanced structures. Circulation of matter in the universe is echoed in the circular formations and gradual movements of shapes and colours that testify to the interconnectedness and relativity.