Gary Webb: Travel Bubble

Gary Webb belongs to a generation of British sculptors coming after the prestigious artists of the New British Sculpture group of the 1980s (with Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Anish Kapoor, etc.) and the Young British Artists of the 1990s (Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Rachel Whiteread, etc.). Webb is therefore both the heir to this golden age of British sculpture, and one of its main practitioners today. Since his studies at Goldsmiths College in London in the late 1990s, Gary Webb has become known for his hybrid sculptures combining historical, cultural and material references with great liberty. His sculptures are characterized by their unexpected and contrasting compositions, part abstract, part figurative, at once geometric and organic, combining modernist references and kitsch decorative motifs. These apparent contradictions, which coexist in an unsettling and almost humorous fashion, find their harmony in the joyous, colourful and playful aesthetic that is Gary Webb's. His sculptures are made from an amazing aggregate of modern-day artisanal and industrially-produced resources. The variety of materials used (steel, aluminium, copper, Plexiglas, plastic, glass, wood, marble, neon, etc.) and the care given to their assembly and finish is not unlike the production methods used with objects of contemporary design.

For his exhibition Travel Bubble at the Galerie Mitterrand, Gary Webb is presenting an ensemble of works, including two new sculptures " made from cast aluminium and covered in lacquered paint " that not only resemble colourful abacuses but garish fantastical totems. Visitors can also discover two recent mural works that bear witness to the artist's ongoing material research and exploration. In Blue face (2017), Gary Webb developed his work in the manner of stained glass or a piece of marquetry, by assembling various coloured materials, both opaque, translucent and shiny. Travel Bubble (2018), a kind of vortex of a time machine that travels through time or space, is an exuberant work that combines the use of chrome-plated aluminium and latex, in which pigments are freely diluted. Finally, visitors can see a series of sculptures, realized in 2009, which embody on a smaller scale, the codes characteristic of the artist's work: play, instability, juxtaposition, contrast and evocative titles, etc.  

Gary Webb was born in Dorset, Hampshire, in the UK in 1973. He currently lives and works in London. A graduate of Goldsmiths College London, his work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, notably at Le Consortium, Dijon in 2005 and deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Massachusetts, in the US in 2012, or more recently at the Bloomberg Space in London (2014). He also participated in the 2011 exhibition Modern British Sculpture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. His works are also presented in the collections of the Tate Gallery and the Arts Council of London, the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Belgium, and in France at the Musée Départemental d'Art Contemporain in Rochechouart and at Carquefou, as part of the Fonds régional d'art contemporain (Regional Contemporary Art Fund) of the Pays de la Loire region.