Resort

Emil Toonen’s Resort isn’t the type of place you’d go on holiday. Rather on entering his exhibition in the Front Gallery of Kings ARI, it becomes clear what he has resorted to. The space has been furnished with an assortment of repurposed objects that demonstrate a DIY ethic. Suggestively they form the basis of a habitation: a stool, shelf, lamps, kettle, etc. Yet these objects constructed for the most part from consumer cast-offs, manifest a more imaginative and inventive potential then their original intended application. For instance a digital camera has been altered, its lens displaced and another grafted in its stead. The effected images from this hacked camera have then been applied to generate further works also presented.  In another piece a light bulb cobbled into an empty can has been manipulated to project an image of itself onto the gallery wall. The works present an embodied approach to making and creative outcomes based on ingenuity and resourcefulness applied to materials otherwise relegated as junk.