“Believe me, nothing perishes in all the world; it does but vary and renew its form.“ Ovid, Metamorphoses 15

History in different cultures has a rich tradition of folkloric tales regarding metamorphosis. From the goddesses and demons in Greek storytelling to more modern examples in Kafka’s regrettable “Verwandlung” of Gregor Samsa. The idea of shapeshifting is embedded in our collective cultures.

In their first show together, Orlando Marosini and Adam Thompson combine current works exploring the idea of transformation. Whereas Marosini employs airbrush, acrylics, watercolors and oil stick to create his lavish, radiant works, Thompson adopts a sharp, purist approach to his multilayered, bichromatic compositions.

Visually the two artists diverge in radically different directions, but non the less share a common ground through both their use of layered paints and interpretation of figurative elements. In Marosinis canvases the gestural strokes shift and crawl within the narrative of mythical figures, floating eyes and obscure naive symbols. The abstract forms in Thompson’s spray painted stacked abstractions bear a semblance to hieroglyphs. These recent works depict a language of shapes and recombined layers that evoke impressions of abstract polymorphic figures, contorting vertically or inclining awkwardly into the frame.