Daniel McKewen

Daniel McKewen

IMA at Ksubi

05 May–06 June 201205 May–06 Jun 2012

Brisbane video artist Daniel McKewen focuses on the Hollywood entertainment industry and the creative impulses of its fans. Reconfiguring pop-culture imagery, he explores the tension between complicit fan behaviour and critical artistic practice. In his video installation Distance, he processes celebrity portraits from high-end fashion magazines to create a shifting painterly landscape. On one screen, faces morph into one another. They appear hairy, burnt, or craggy, suggesting, by turns, lycanthrophic transmutation, sacrificial disfiguration, and petrification. On three other screens, abutted as a triptych, McKewen pans over his source images close up, with a fetishist’s attention to detail. A soundtrack suggests heavy breathing or an otherworldy ambience.