Alexandre Farto aka VhilsDissonance

Lazarides Rathbone is pleased to announce a new multidisciplinary exhibition by Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils. Dissonance presents a powerful response to contemporary culture and rapid urban regeneration, featuring reoccurring figurative compositions comprised of wood, billboard, metal and Styrofoam dioramas.

The artist's long awaited return to the UK follows Devoid, his last major collection presented at Lazarides Rathbone in 2012. The new series of dynamic work expands on themes developed throughout Farto's widely acclaimed 2014 solo exhibitions: Dissection, held at Lisbon's EDP Museum and Vestiges, showcased in Paris.

Dissonance explores notions of increased saturation and dilution of personal identities in contemporary urban societies, reflecting the uniformity and abstraction brought about by the current model of globalised development. The new body of work speaks of how individuals are shaped into increasingly abstract personalities by the overpowering force of the city and its visual stimuli. Unique identities are becoming lost to the dissonance that results from the chaos engendered by technology, visual communication, mass media and urban development.

The upcoming exhibition presents a poignant reflection on various factors that compose the contemporary urbanised world, personal identities becoming increasingly abstract, lost to the visual noise and clutter that encompass us. Farto's mixed media works highlight the stratification of urban society using a variety of contrasting mediums and complex techniques to portray each subject, illustrating the process of reciprocal shaping that lies at the heart of the relationship between the city and its inhabitants.