Liquid Mud Paintings
Seb Trend
27.01.2018–14.02.2018
Liquid Mud Paintings
Exhibition view
Slugtown are pleased to present Liquid Mud Paintings, an installation of new works by Newcastle based artist Seb Trend.
Over the past few years he has developed a practice that he dubs ‘cerapaintographic’, utilising a combination of ceramics, painting and manipulated photographs. Underpinning each work are the formal aspects of painting or photography, which Trend then disrupts with the ceramic process, embracing the alchemy, slippage and loss of control that comes with firing clay at 1260°C.
Trend’s interest is in the ‘inbetween-ness’ and liquidity of solid things; the melted appearance of weathered stone, or the fluid like nature of wood grain. The artist links melting and erosion to a tradition of vanitas painting. Imagining that his paintings are very slowly moving and in flux, the artist muses that in time everything will melt, no matter how solid it may seem.
Seb Trend (b. 1986). Recent exhibitions include: Painting in the Dark, 36 Lime St, Newcastle; Beyond the Goldmine Standard, RPM, Newcastle; RIFT, Baltic 39, Newcastle.