Thom Merrick

Motorbikes, bicycles, tyres, hitch-hiking… Thom Merrick’s work is permeated by a desire for motion. He admits being more interested in travelling than art, he reads and re-reads Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and, like the good Californian he is, he only really thinks behind the wheel of a car. So why, then, does the artist strive to strip motorbikes down to the last little bolt, wait for hours at the roadside painting oozing, trickling monochromes, imprison an inflatable balloon within the four cramped walls of an art centre and wreck his bicycle (Democratic UNA Bomber Party Crash Bike) ?

Marc-Olivier Wahler translated by Simon Pleasance

Opening November 14 1998
Exhibition from November 15 1998 to January 17 1999