After more than ten years in the game, Mysterious Al finally got around to opening his first solo show The Doomsday Papers at StolenSpace this Thursday. When planning your first show, it must be a worrying time: Will anyone show up? Will they like the work….? It turns out Al’s show was the most packed we’ve seen at StolenSpace for a long time, and everyone AM spoke to enjoyed the work.
We had a hint of what sort of work Al was making for this show when we visted him in his studio back in January. The Meso-American masks we saw were looking strong as were the monster movie-themed pieces, so we were pleased to see that Al took things to the next level with a series of 3D wood collaged pieces and his installation of a maze-like garden shed in the centre of the gallery with complete with a wall-shaking drum & bass soundtrack! Al believes that the D&B should be pumping at full volume for the entire duration of the show, but we suspect that Beth may have other ideas…. The shed was mocked-up to look like a mini studio inside, and Al kept every off-cut of paper whilst he was making the collaged work and installed it inside along with candles, beer tins and upside-down crosses. Word to Mother left a special message inside also. The show stopper was the collaged title piece for the show – a large re-appropriated advertisement poster with delicately overlaid paper cuts.
See more pictures after the jump.
Discuss Mysterious Al here.
See the rest of our flicks here.
