Presence in Absence, 2020. JD Malat Gallery is pleased to announce Presence in Absence, a solo exhibition by Irish artist Ian Cumberland, from 7 th September to 5 th October 2020. Born in Banbridge in 1983, Cumberland is bestknown for his hyperrealist portraits of isolated subjects in detailed interiors, exploring themes of mass media culture, surveillance and the notion of the human ‘self ’. Presence in Absence consists of installations that utilise portraits in a multi-part tableau, establishing a dialogue between objects. Cumberland’s works involve an assemblage of theatrical objects, giving rise to an acute degree of realism. Reminiscent of Brecht and his theatre sets, the individuals in Cumberland’s works are faced with a multitude of choices and possibilities and it is up to the viewer to decide what those choices will be. Although Cumberland begins the story, the audience finishes it. Cumberland is meticulous with his choices, everything is precisely controlled from the colour palette, the outfits, the lighting and the overall set. This staging and organisation are a commentary on our society, how we are manipulated to believe in lifestyles and material goods. Get…
Common Fiction, 2018, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, Common Fiction / Once Removed, 2019, Josef Filipp Gallery, Leipzig, Germany. Encountering the work of Ian Cumberland is a peculiar, unsettling experience, as if the viewer has intruded into a ‘space’ and a ‘moment’ to which they are alien. Positioned as an outsider, Cumberland’s series of multi component tableaux seem to offer a viewing experience that falls somewhere between an invitation to eavesdrop and an unintended moment of voyeurism. This is paradoxical, after all it is generally accepted that on entering the gallery we indicate our willing participation in a well established and familiar ritual of cultural consumption, searching out art for its promise of entertainment or enlightenment. As the viewer traverses the carefully choreographed field of objects that constitute Cumberland’s solo exhibition, his first in Germany, we encounter a collection of individual artworks which, on first sight, seem distinct and self-contained, but which on further reflection, appear to gradually offer themselves as individual episode in a larger, more complex narrative. Though formally diverse, each work in the exhibition is presented…
Once Removed, 2016. People are often attracted by the apparent realism of Ian Cumberland’s paintings. In fact, the paintings are more than realistic: they are hyper-real. Their surfaces record flesh and fabric, pattern and texture, with a minute and unnatural attention to detail. In this and other respects they recall the heightened realism of cinema and theatre, both of which require the willing suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. We voluntarily agree to ignore the artifice of what we’re looking at for entertainment’s sake but also, significantly, with the hope of gaining some valuable insight into what is real. Each person in a painting by Cumberland in ‘Once Removed’ is an isolated presence, usually alone in a domestic setting. But both person and setting share a quality of theatricality. We seem to catch the individual at a moment of doubt, perplexity or hesitation, in the midst of an ongoing drama. The settings they occupy are in one sense very ordinary, but also starkly lit and visually enhanced. It is hardly surprising to find that the artist constructed sets and posed his models in them. So far, one could say, he is creating an illusion of normality in the…