Historical techniques and traditions of painting are appropriated and quoted in Robin Megannity's work, and the pathos, melancholy and solemnity of Northern European still life paintings are interrupted by references to digital image making. Glitches and ruptures in the framing of his images connect the temporality of the historical source imagery with commonplace contemporary means of media manipulation. Similarly, the anodine and lifeless simulations of computer renderings or product advertising, are imbued with the historical weight and meaning of painting that pulls them out of the virtual and lends them authenticity. Megannity perpetually reframes and recontextualises his source imagery to create an internal dissonance or aberration that pushes his works beyond the seductive beauty of their rendering towards a potent assertion of ambivalent detachment.
Robin Megannity (b.1985, North-West, UK) is based in Greater Manchester, UK. He completed his MA in Painting at Manchester, School of Art in 2021 and received a BA in Fine Art at University of Wales Institute, Cardiff in 2007. Megannity has exhibited nationally and internationally, selected solo exhibitions include Call of the Void, Workplace, London, UK (2023); ferme la fenêtre, Kristian Day Gallery, London, UK (2021); Goes Without Saying, Bunker Gallery, Manchester, UK (2019); and Compression, Studios Gallery, New Mills, UK (2014). Selected Group exhibitions include Fayre Share Fayre, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2022); In Crystallized Time, Museum Of Museums, Seattle, USA (2021); ONE, Subsidiary Projects, San Mei Gallery, London, UK (2021); The Contact Layer, curated by Ian Gonczarow, Stewart Hall, Montreal, CA (2020); and Unfamiliar Handshake, The Function Suite, curated by Brian Mountford, London, UK (2020).
Video:
Robin Megannity on Call of the Void
Robin Megannity discusses the ideas behind the works in his solo exhibition Call of the Void at Workplace | London.
Call of the Void explores Megannity’s endeavour to hold paradoxical or contrary sentiments within his painting that connect the ubiquitous with the sublime. Historical techniques and traditions of painting are appropriated and quoted in his work, and the pathos, melancholy and solemnity of Northern European still life paintings are interrupted by references to digital image making. Glitches and ruptures in the framing of his images connect the temporality of the historical source imagery with commonplace contemporary means of media manipulation.
