Hi Vis Fumes James Hornsby 6 August - 4 September 2021 - Onespace Gallery

Hi Vis Fumes
     James Hornsby
6 August - 4 September 2021

The Future Is Cancelled: James Hornsby’s Visual Meltdown

“The Machine” they exclaimed, “feeds us and clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through
it we see one another, in it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition: The
Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine.”

—E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops, 1909, p. 19

Hi Vis Fumes is James Hornsby’s first solo show at Onespace Gallery. It comprises a suite of new photographic,
mixed-media artworks presented in an immersive, site-specific installation created especially for this showcase.

The through line of Hornsby’s practice is the degeneration of psychosocial cohesion under the hyper-mediated
and technologically complex conditions of 21st century life. Hornsby routinely collages references to horror films,
video games, punk rock, psychedelics, tropical landscapes and eroticism through a dizzying high-fructose visual
language idiosyncratic to the internet. These are amphetamine-rich virtual geographies that tread a fine line
between libidinous commercialisation and full-blown insanity. Hornsby reveals a world within which the ramifications
of technological acceleration can be seen in high definition. He harnesses the converging shock waves of global
upheavals on our social imagination, abstaining entirely from soothing our malaise.

For those of us who grew up in the early 1990s, during the spring of the household computer, Hornsby’s work can be
downright frightening. It’s a far cry from that idyllic Windows wallpaper, suitably titled Bliss, of an impossibly perfect
(yet relatively unedited) photograph of rolling green hills and a blue sky awash with fluffy white clouds. Our early
encounters with machines were synonymous
with unbridled optimism, a time when the
future was thriving, unfolding effortlessly in
front of us—think ‘edutainment’ programs such
as Eyewitness, Scholastic, The Magic School
Bus, SimCity, and Encarta. Arguably, the most
significant of these programs was Microsoft
Paint.            Many of us—Hornsby included—cut
our teeth in ‘artistic practice’ with this simple
graphics editor, establishing the digital as our
vernacular medium of expression. These were
programs and computers that we trusted,
that emboldened us with a sense of agency
in the world. Above all, these were computers
we could turn off. There’s even a Facebook
group called ‘Utopian Scholastic Designs from
a Pre-9/11 World’ that memorialises this bright-
eyed, bushy-tailed moment. Fast forward to
Hornsby’s work today and we can almost make
out the comforting curve of that pristine hillside,
but those verdant grasslands have long since
gone to seed. The unruly terrain now pulsates
with the disorder of YouTube ‘autoplay’, 15
second TikTok videos, and the incessant ‘New
Posts’ notifications of Instagram. There seems
to be no discernible path back to that bucolic
bliss, no way back to consensus reality.

Image (above): James Hornsby, FLUID, 2021, Giclée print on Hahnemuhle canvas, 90 x 60cm, AP + Edition of 3. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Onespace Gallery.

In a time when much of contemporary art depends on cool
intellectual strategies to examine the challenges of today,
Hornsby chooses a more sensual approach, affording us a
pre-frontal bypass, a desire path to perceptual and emotional
immediacy. This can be disorienting for audiences conditioned
to a slower cadence of information processing. Hornsby’s artwork
is a visual affront—an explosion of colours, textures and symbolic
invocations co-mingling in a pictorial Petri dish. Viewed from
a distance, many of his works could be mistaken for abstract
paintings and there are important parallels to this artistic genre.
Hornsby excavates his subconscious and attacks the picture
plane with endless layers of expressive gestures. However, unlike

Hornsby’s skill lies in his ability to successfully
map the terrain of our current emotional
habitat while teetering on the edge of material
breakdown. The subjects and narratives of his
artworks are receding into the background,
into the cellular components of the virtual
environment.

the abstract expressionists of the 20th century, Hornsby chooses
machines and software over canvas and paint. That’s not to
say his work is totally devoid of tactile action. His photographic
prints are frequented by over-painted marks made by hand
and anarchist spray can. But it’s within the digital realm that
the real work is done. As cameras and code evolve into more
and more porous media, so too do artists’ use of them. Over
the last decade alone, imaging technologies have transformed
beyond recognition; it’s increasingly difficult to identify where
the hardware begins and the software ends. This fluidity allows
Hornsby to ride the ouroboros cycle of the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’.
His works are becoming increasingly intuitive, transmuting
the raw material of photography into pigment for the digital
paintbrush tool. Hornsby’s skill lies in his ability to successfully
map the terrain of our current emotional habitat while teetering
on the edge of material breakdown. The subjects and narratives
of his artworks are receding into the background, into the cellular components of the virtual environment. This brings
into high relief the infrastructure of the digital world that is otherwise largely invisible and immaterial.

Hi Vis Fumes is a clever title, evoking an unnerving paradox. We feel the whiplash of dignified hard yakka versus the
tyranny of invisible work-site hazards, a potent metaphor for ‘business as usual’ while the canary song fades. These
are the perils of proletariat romanticism. Hornsby’s work tunes us to the beating drums of danger. He is the doula
of meltdowns, rejecting the stiff upper lip and relieving us of our duty to ‘keep calm and carry on’. Here, we find
ourselves engaged in emergency foreplay—an artistic escape room providing us a ‘safe space’ to rehearse (and
prepare for) the worst-case scenario.

                                                                                                                                                                                    Julia Scott Green

Image (above): James Hornsby, RUNNING, 2021, UV print on aluminium sheet with aerosol, 90 x 30cm, Unique State - Edition 1/1. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Onespace Gallery.

James Hornsby is a multi-disciplinary artist
known for his distinctive aesthetic and
experimental approach to image making.
Hornsby’s practice responds to our ever-
increasing use of digital imaging technologies,
suggesting that we are creating new realities
in equal parts seductive and out of control.
Hornsby’s projects span the physical and the
virtual, exploring the intersections between
the two. Between the hand-made and the
digital; three-dimensional objects and two-
dimensional representation; photographic
truth and post-truth; and the relationship
between our real and virtual lives. Hornsby’s
work has been described as explosive, bold,
hyper-real, chaotic and unhinged. He has
worked with the likes of Vogue Magazine,
Vans, EMI and Sony Music and has received
awards from the Brisbane City Council, the
Queensland Centre for Photography and
was a finalist in The Walls ‘PrizeNoPrize’ art
prize. His work has been exhibited in public
and commercial galleries and festivals
across Australia including, the Brisbane
Powerhouse,           BIGSOUND,          the      Centre       for
Contemporary Photography, Brisbane Art
and Design Festival, the Adelaide Festival
Centre, the Brisbane Street Art Festival, and
the Queensland Museum.

Onespace Gallery and James Hornsby would like to thank:
Adriana Hornsby; Geoff Hornsby; Cornelis van den Boogaart; Czarina Carvajal; Martin Barry (Brisbane Digital Images); Prolab;
Julia Scott Green; Evie Franzidis; Joshua Reilly; Louis Lim; Symons Signs and Worldwide Printing - South Brisbane.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands, winds and waters on which this gallery stands.
We pay our respects to Elders, past, present and future.

onespacegallery.com.au				                                                             Gallery Directors, John Stafford and Jodie Cox
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Australia
+61 7 3846 0642 								                                                                                Gallery Manager, Alicia Hollier
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Sat: 11am–5pm								                                                                            Gallery Communications, Taylor Hall
										taylor@onespacegallery.com.au

                                                                                                   Kindly supported by

Image (cover): James Horsby, SHADOW BANNED, 2021, Giclée print on Hahnemuhle canvas,
90 x 60cm, AP + Edition of 3. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Onespace Gallery.

Image (above): James Hornsby, 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.