The Advice Shape

The sense that you are about to be shown something wrong lingers throughout this bizarre semi-narrative. Appropriated imagery of natural disasters, paper crafts, mutated animals, abject beauty and genocide form an exquisite corpse of uncanny connectivity with chirrupy 1950s advertising music or romantic classical. Is this a test? A sensual strip curtain of shiny black pvc suddenly slides in front of the frame - further teasing the relationship with the material act of viewing and constructing meaning, and you are faced with a lo-fi gameshow puzzle that provides no opportunity to engage and a live, rubber-headed nurse continues your aptitude test. “You have a split emotional register,” you are told, “would you like me to reseal it?”

"Curator Jon Davies has described Thomas’s work as ‘kitchen-sink surrealism’, succinctly articulating the way the artist tips everyday social and domestic concerns into the fantastical, bizarre and transgressive. If kitchen sink realism was tied to concerns in a specific region of England – the North, The Advice Shape diagnoses the extent to which domestic fears and anxiety today have become transatlantic and effected by nonhuman factors such as technology. It is simultaneously ubiquitous and particular, riddled with paradox." -- Johnathan P Watts.

Note: This title is intended by the artist to be viewed in High Definition. While DVD format is available to enable accessibility, VDB recommends presentation on Blu-ray or HD digital file.