New Utopias
In his series 'New Utopia' Miles Aldridge attempts to explore the collision of popular culture with so called serious Art, where the smiling model advertising new appliances is elevated to the status of the goddesses depicted in the Renaissance. His photographs look like paintings viewed from afar but remember of the pages of magazines in close-up. The technique of screenprinting lends itself perfectly to this task, allowing large scale prints made up of the coloured dots characteristic of magazine printing. The additional use of silver ink highlights the various products simultaneously referencing the use of gold leaf in Renaissance altarpieces while being part of the visual language of Pop Art. The New Utopias are the Apotheosis of modern life; divine and banal. The mundane is loaded with seriousness and the profound is only a moment away from the ridicule.
