Past Exhibition

Port Chalmers based multidisciplinary artist Nathan Thompson presents Images from the Rotting Archive.

"I have a bad memory, this has spurred an interest in the way memory functions. as a result some of my shows incorporate ideas around memory and this is true of Images From The Rotting Archive . Memories are always incomplete and selective and i am interested in that point where memories break down into questions. Like The Monkey Lovers this exhibition was a series of images that work together while leaving out plenty of information. The images are a set of incomplete memories. The cigarette lighter at a concert, a forgotten steaming waterfall an ancient stage play of which no one remembers the plot. What connects these images is that they are all partial memories in the process of disappearing. In the case of The Rotting Archive this idea is reinforced by the fact the they are painted in white oil stick on building paper as time goes on each year the bitumen in the paper eats away at the oil paint turning it sepia. A fictitious journey through the past." - Nathan Thompson

"The rotting archive was a similar connect your own dots narrative with less images. Large scale drawings on bitumen building paper. The idea here was that the images formed part of an unseen narrative (cigarette lighter, waterfall, slime, unexplained theatre production) with the added complication that the images were painted in oil paint on bitumen. Over time the bitumen (background) dissolves the foreground oil paint –hence the name rotting archive. Somehow seems to echo my archiving abilities. Same thing happening to Rembrandt's paintings – apparently bitumen grounds were popular for a while there, warm blacks I guess...." - Nathan Thompson  2014