SUBSYSTEM

The show comprises a series of prints and installations, which sees the artist – recently graduated from the renowned Camberwell College of Arts – explore the aesthetic of systems. Intrigued by technology and the highly mechanised societies we live in, Pearson investigates the way that certain symbols and images can precipitate complex chain-reactions in the imagination. Drawing on a comprehensive reference bank of detailed drawings, diagrams and numerical data compiled through meticulous research, he exploits industrial forms, city landscapes and transport systems to create his images – using traditional techniques alongside new technology.

Laser-cutting is integral to the work and in this new work Pearson takes this as a starting point from which to explore technological structures whilst highlighting the relationship between man and machine. Using rulers and circle guides, initial hand-drawn pencil arrangements combine fragments of pre-existing systems with imagined elements. These compositions are scanned, enlarged, interpreted by bit-map computer software and laser-cut into thick card sheets. Some of these are then inked and pressed to paper to create large-scale prints and some remain as unprinted blocks.

By the end, the work has traveled back and forth through various junctures, each affecting the final outcome: from image to eye, eye to brain, brain to hand, hand to machine and back again. The resulting forms are at once comforting and perplexing, precise and ambiguous: seemingly simple contours revealing complex webs of structures and vice versa. They reflect the bizarrely organic nature of advanced technological systems and remind us of the fragile balance of chaos and order that underpins them. The seemingly abstract images all follow similar sets of principles to parameters around us – the ubiquity of the shapes being a result of the similarities between science, technology and communication. Through Subsystem, Pearson invites the viewer to explore these relationships with him.