Christopher Langton Text - Ryan Renshaw Gallery

CHRISTOPHER LANGTON ARTIST STATEMENT

Plastic, that perfect polymerisation. Endlessly flowing, growing and changing. A material with manifold applications and usage, I am captivated with its currency as a commodity in mass consumer culture. It is the ideal material to employ as I navigate the conceptual domain of popular culture.

In these works the Pop imagery of my formative years is made abstract and amorphous. The shiny, high-gloss surface still signals desire with its origin on the shopping mall shelf, but it is as if the work has caught a virus, the previous iconic characters undone. The skin of my Pop principles has been peeled back to reveal a glistening, yet raw and swirling toxic tissue beneath, perhaps a symptom of excessive consumerism. The satisfaction of desire in the shopping mall is always temporary before it is replaced with desire for something else. This observation, for me, requires abstract representation. Dolly and Built for comfort are recognition of this epidemic.

‘Like a projection into the future where one witnesses one’s death, the sight of the dimensional depth just the other side of “skin-deep” can debilitate beyond comprehension’ (Philip Brophy, 2003).

The deformed and bloated limbs are testimony to the swoon of social modification. This mapping is therefore as much cartography of mental space as of physical space.

CHRISTOPHER LANGTON BLISTERED

PRESS RELEASE, 2009

Ryan Renshaw Gallery is proud to announce the upcoming exhibition ‘Blistered’ by Christopher Langton. Christopher Langton is a pop sculptor, painter and installation artist who creates blow up toys, and imagery of a future unnervingly reminiscent of our present. In his new exhibition Langton continues to explore the ambiguous nature of real and simulated events.

“Plastic, that perfect polymerisation. Endlessly flowing, growing and changing. A material with manifold applications and usage, I am captivated with its currency as a commodity in mass consumer culture. It is the ideal material to employ as I navigate the conceptual domain of popular culture” (Christopher Langton).

Christopher Langton continues to explore the ambiguous nature of real and simulated events in his new work for Blistered. By reconstructing images captured from computer games and other virtual realities, Langton presents us with works that create a dizzying blur between fact and fiction.

The slick manufacturing of these images generate a reality that is glossy, yet difficult to decipher. Langton plays with this uncertainty by situating figures amongst simulated landscapes, referencing our ability to assume new identities in virtual worlds. Ultimately, it is up to the viewer to reconcile conflicting impressions of illusion and reality and bring into question the authenticity of the scene.

This is all done knowingly by Langton, as our engagement with these works relies upon similar imagery retrieved from current events and popular culture. By pushing and pulling us in and out of different worlds, Langton forces us to reconsider the origins of what we see.

‘The skin of my Pop principles has been peeled back to reveal a glistening, yet raw and swirling toxic tissue beneath, perhaps a symptom of excessive consumerism. The satisfaction of desire is always temporary before it is replaced with desire for something else’ (Christopher Langton).

Christopher Langton’s work makes you feel good, but only sort of…. There is something ominous about his sculptures, despite their bright colours, smiling faces and fun media. They blend playful naivety with a more knowing aesthetic and are highly toxic in nature and highly toxic in effect.

CHRISTOPHER LANGTON PLIANT

PRESS RELEASE, 2007

Christopher Langton is a pop sculptor, painter and installation artist who creates blow up toys, and imagery of a future unnervingly reminiscent of our present. In his new exhibition Langton continues to explore the ambiguous nature of real and simulated events. By reconstructing images captured from computer games and other virtual realities, Langton presents us with works that create a dizzying blur between fact and fiction. The slick manufacturing of these images generate a reality that is glossy, yet difficult to decipher. In his PVC paintings the paint is applied to the back of the surface so that when the work is complete you look through the material. ‘People look at my work and they think it’s been made commercially whereas it’s been hand-made…and I enjoy that paradox.’ Langton plays upon this uncertainty by situating figures amongst simulated landscapes, referencing our ability to assume new identities in virtual worlds. Ultimately, it is up to the viewer to reconcile conflicting impressions of illusion and reality and bring into question the authenticity of the scene.

Christopher Langton is a Melbourne-based artist. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1954, and migrated to Australia in 1973. He studied at the Victorian College of Arts (Graduate diploma). He has exhibited widely in Australia and overseas and is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and now Ryan Renshaw, Brisbane.

CHRISTOPHER LANGTON

by Hanna Tai

Christopher Langton’s new works for Pliant speak of a malleability that extends from the materiality of his objects through to the duel worlds they occupy. Working with the pliant properties of plastic, Langton reconditions human identity and experience into a shimmering place filled with our own distorted reflections.

Langton’s series of plastic-y portraits are a play on his fascination with the ambiguous nature of real and simulated events. In these paintings faces are divided and reduced into blocks of colour, creating an effect similar to the appearance of a topographic landscape. Langton’s treatment of the face as a series of contours enables us to read the features of these characters with the simplicity and precision of a map, whilst managing to mask the real stuff; the flesh, pores and skin that make them human.

But how real are these people? Looking at Man with Scar and Girl with Shades, we see imagery resembling the kind of scenes found in video games and movies. Lurking in the shadows and behind dark glasses, these figures could be either gaming characters or real people caught in life's more filmic moments.

Despite their friendly, glossy finish, there are the markings of something violent in these paintings. In Man With Scar, we see the residue of a bloodied scar, reduced to defined speckles o Mushie f reddish brown. And with light glaring in her face, Girl With Shades could be enjoying the sun in an exotic location as much as she could be sitting amid the aftermath of a nuclear disaster. These are identities conceived through colours and lines; remnant tracings of whatever image lay before - real or imaginary.

The slippage between fact and fiction in Langton’s works could not be better personified by former Mr Universe and actor-cum-politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bearing a number of personas that merge and combine, Arnie has been granted nicknames such as The Governator and Conan the Republican. As real an actor as he is unreal a politician, Schwarzenegger is expert at stepping in and out of his many worlds, using references from his fictional characters to help obtain real life goals in the political arena.

Arnie signifies a push and pull between genuine and artificial, bringing even the reality of his own flesh into question. Having taken performance-enhancing anabolic steroids before they were made illegal in 1990, Schwarzenegger openly admits using these ‘tissue building’ drugs to help him obtain his status as the World's Strongest Man and Mr Universe. Situated against a swirling toxic backdrop, Arnie presents us with an identity as malleable as the muscles under his skin. Half-Terminator and half-Governor, Arnie is truly a hybrid pop icon, each rippling contour signifying desire and power.

Joining Arnie’s quest for a superhuman physique is Mario, gaming icon and fellow action hero. With the need to grow bigger, stronger and faster in a game that only gets harder, Mario’s mushroom dependency moves him onward and upward, enabling him to defeat the forces of evil and save his beloved Princess Peach. In Super Mario Bros. every world is laden with new obstacles and challenges, and Mario, plumber-turned-superhero, requires all the help he can get. The answer is: power-up on anabolic mushies, super-drug of the virtual world.

Observing the irrepressibly glossy lure of Langton’s inflated mushroom is akin to being a kid in a candy store. It’s delightfully puffy face begs to be devoured and consumed. But despite the fun, toy-like nature of Mega Mushroom and his other inflated objects, there is something about the pressure lurking beneath the surface that leaves one feeling uneasy. These objects have had life breathed into them, but all the goodness is tightly trapped under a thick plastic-y skin. If you have ever popped a lolly into your mouth and then realized the plastic wrapper was still attached, you will know what this tastes like.

In Karl, we see all this pressure contained within the human head. Stretched tight over a wooden backing, Karl’s lustrous complexion is immune to wrinkles and other imperfections. With perfectly engineered features mapped onto a bloated face, it is hard to tell whether he is the human ideal, or the result of a botched facelift and botox job.

Covered in markings similar to the working lines of a plastic surgeon, we look at Karl and see the possibilities of remoulding and reworking ones identity by pushing and pulling at the contours of the face. A more painless alternative to the real-life procedure can be found within the virtual world of Second Life, where an Avatar’s features are manipulated instantaneously with a simple menu function. And like Karl, most Avatars in the Second Life world of muscle-men and busty women will opt for an overblown, superhuman look.

This is place of lacquered dreams; inflated and deflated.

CHRISTOPHER LANGTON THE AGE NEWSPAPER

Inflatable object of desire
July 19 2003

Pop-art offerings like those from Christopher Langton have polarised critics. Gabriella Coslovich reports.

Christopher Langton's inflatable sculptures and paintings demand attention. Smooth as sin, sharp as glare and shiny as a supermodel's pout, they seduce and titillate. At once playful and menacing, the works dominate the space of Tolarno Galleries in Flinders Lane and threaten to usurp it. One basks in their presence and feels slightly soiled by the pleasure. They engender the love-hate bliss of bingeing - instant gratification followed by queasy remorse.

Big, colourful inflated discs, some reminiscent of thermal charts or topographic maps, hang on the walls. Pulse, a vibrant sphere erupts with irregular concentric lines of saturated colour radiating out from a hot core of lozenge-red to a cooler perimeter of celestial blue. Then there is Brad and Jen - a moon-faced duo, big-eyed and cartoon-like, with Jen bearing an uncanny resemblance to Betty Boop. The couple are flanked by thought bubbles in which they guilelessly declare their undying devotion: "I love you Brad." "I love you too, Jen." The vacuous lovers are inspired by their namesakes, the wedded darlings of women's mags, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

Around the corner is another inflated disc, throbbing with a different sort of passion. It's a larger than life close-up of a blow-up doll, lips parted, titled Give it to Me (I Can Take It). No explanation needed. Then there is the freaky euphoria induced by the large canvas Heading South - a decorative work featuring row after row of stars with searing scarlet hearts shining against a backdrop of tropical paradise blue.

The works arouse a clash of memories and images - childhood and wading pools, boiled lollies and blow-up toys, adult book stores and "marital aids", kinky PVC gear and chemical ecstasy.

Langton has dubbed the show PrOn, an anagram not too difficult to decipher.

"To me this is . . . the pornography of the art world; it's like cheap sex," he says, sitting in the tranquil backyard of his Northcote home.

"It's all surface and, according to people, there's no depth, there's no meaning to it. You look at it once and then you forget it in five seconds, so I'm playing with those ideas."

Perhaps he is alluding to past reviews. Art critic Peter Timms, in an analysis of 1999's Monash University group show The Persistence of Pop, ripped into the offerings of Australian artists working in the pop-art vein and found many of the works "dull and formulaic", devoid of meaning - Langton's blow-up kangaroos among them.

Critic and filmmaker Philip Brophy, though, has found plenty to ruminate over in Langton's latest works. In his dense catalogue essay for the show, Brophy compares Langton's high-gloss canvases and inflatables to skin - "the icing on the flesh cake" - and references everything from Nightmare on Elm Street to the iconic art of orthodox religions along the way.

Ironically, the first-floor studio space where Langton's latest inflatables were conceived has dissolved into the ether, gone up in smoke. All that remains of the space, a former ballet studio, are two black beams, charred and rippled into a lifetime's supply of charcoal, cutting dramatic lines against the clear winter sky. The scorched floorboards are shrouded with a green tarpaulin to stop rain from seeping into the floor below, a former storage area now used as Langton's interim workspace.

This makeshift studio is spartan and industrial in contrast to the brazen sculptures Langton produces. It is devoid of visual stimuli, unless you count the whiteboard on which the artist scrawls notes to himself. Tony Ellwood, deputy director of the National Gallery of Victoria, I see, is in line for a bottle of wine, if Langton ever gets round to that task.

Two long trestle tables run the length of the studio. Beneath them lie rolls of PVC and masking material, bits of timber and scrunched up remnants of past shows - a deflated koala bear, discarded bits of plastic.

Over in a pungent-smelling corner, are shelves lined with steel paint tins with evocative labels such as tangerine, avocado green, butterscotch and sapphire blue. Cardboard milkshake containers are filled with a noxious concoction of spangly silver paint. Other tins contain "viponds isocryl" and come with a "hazardous" warning. Solvents are stored in large plastic canisters and cans of household paints, interior acrylics and super enamel gloss are heaped on the concrete floor.

These toxic and flammable substances did not spark the fire that destroyed Langton's first-floor studio a year ago, but they helped fuel the pyrotechnic display that followed. An exhaust fan that Langton had left on after working triggered the blaze, which became a bonfire of exploding paint cans and solvents.

Langton's step-daughter, who sleeps in a room close to the sculptor's studio, was woken by the noise and alerted the family. Luckily, the fire did not spread to neighbouring buildings and no one was hurt.

But the incident delayed Langton's show at Tolarno by a year.

"The biggest disappointment for me was losing the next show . . . and I lost my computer and materials, a lot of stored plastics," he says.

Langton has spent the past 14 months recreating his lost works.

After the wicked delight of coming face to face with Langton's inflatables subsides, one begins to wonder how he manages to make them so slick.

His sculptures recall some of the creations of another Melbourne artist, Patricia Piccinini, who is representing Australia at the Venice Biennale this year. And, yes, there is a connection of sorts.

Langton and Piccinini, who were at the Victorian College of the Arts together, were co-founders of the now defunct Basement artist-run space.

The pair have also collaborated on two shows - Modified Terrain, at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane last year and Plastic Life at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2000.

But while Piccinini employs sculptors and other assistants to bring sculptures such as her "car nuggets" to fruition, Langton produces all of his works, which are influenced by the likes of Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Claes Oldenburg and American artist Paul McCarthy, who currently has two huge inflatables - Blockhead and Daddies Bighead - perched outside London's Tate Modern.

Langton, who was born in South Africa and migrated to Australia in 1973 at the age of 19, studied science at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW, before transferring to Bendigo College where he completed a diploma of arts majoring in ceramics. He soon found the medium too limiting and began experimenting with other materials. In the early 1990s he began to dismantle small inflatable toys to see how they were designed and then applied the process to larger-scale works.

"I started off knowing nothing about inflatables, so it's been a self-taught process," he says. "Not many other people do it. You can get them commercially produced but it's very expensive and I was more interested in finding out how to do it myself, to give me flexibility.

"Even though it's taken me a long time to develop, it's quite a simple process where I roll out sheets of flexible plastic, PVC, paint on to the surface using stencils and then cut out patterns and glue them together. It's quite a lot like dressmaking."

Because the paint is applied to the back of the PVC, when the work is complete, the plastic surface works as a protective covering and also gives his sculptures their striking sheen.

"You're painting from behind, so when you look at it from the front, it becomes really glossy because you're looking at it through this PVC. People look at (my work) and they think it's been made commercially whereas it's been hand-made . . . and I enjoy that paradox," the softly spoken artist says.

Langton has also invested much time in devising a paint formula flexible enough to withstand cracking when applied to PVC and inflated.

"Over the last four years I've really worked on that and developed my own paint, which I mix up. I use all these pigments and a polyurethane base and solvents . . . and then spray it on with spray guns, and it really sticks to the PVC."

Images found on the internet, in magazines and even within the depths of his own body inspire his designs.

Influenced by the work of his wife, Diane Mainwaring, a mathematician at Swinburne University's Brain Sciences Institute, Langton had his brain scanned and manipulated the resulting images on computer, creating designs for some of his inflatable discs.

"When I manipulate them they become like maps, they become landscapes of the mind," he says.

Although Langton does not enjoy the same sort of profile as Piccinini, he is quietly pleased that after 26 years in the business, he is still exhibiting.

"It's a very tough environment to survive in," he says. "You look around and there are a lot of people you went to art school with who are not producing any more. To me that's quite satisfying. I would like to be more comfortable, but then again, I'm still making art."