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All present reality rushes towards the domain of what does not exist - yet. It is to this concept of humankind’s fascination with ‘the future’ that Richard Healy’s work responds. The work exists as bold graphic surfaces and colourful, varnished forms, taking advantage of virtual computer space and print technology to produce a clearing for voices, ideas, and sensations to be projected back from the near future.
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'Untitled (Wall Installation)
In Healy’s virtual film loops ‘Works from the Near Future’ (right) and ‘Prototype for a sculpture, if I were to make a sculpture’ (top), the artist deploys the virtual space as an imaginary one outside of any use. Galleries and Museums are left abandoned, filled with flags and curtains, pointing towards unknown groups and organisations; or artefacts and sculptures - relics from a future archaeology. Inhabiting the virtual space as a future one they hover ambiguously in an unknown political, religious and social locale, running on autonomous loop indefinitely.
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Healy presents us with a series of autonomous worlds set against a backdrop of appropriations from current culture, science and art history. Oscillating between abstraction and representation his work exists in multiple disciplines, however constantly gravitates around print.
Printed poster works seen most recently in ‘Untitled (Wall Installation)’, 2008 (exhibited at ‘SHOW’ at the RCA), appear as generous images flyposted directly on the wall, asking nothing of their viewer. They sell or want nothing, unlike the posters which inspire them. They also illustrate the artist's interest in the printed gradient, appearing as both pictorial landscape and flat graphic surface. They operate with the impact of graphic media and the happy-ever-after sunset that promises so much.
Healy has always been attracted to the 'ubiqiutous nature of print, from the flyer and sweet wrapper to the artist's limited edition'. From this foundation the artist seeks to gain enough momentum to escape the gravity of print and encompass the object, installation and performance media. While still existing simultaneously on the periphery and at the centre of print disciplines.
Still from 'Works from the Near Future', DVD
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