Gareth Walsh
Lecturer
Gareth Walsh creates artwork that questions the boundaries of perceived reality, and focuses on the illusionary properties developed through the manipulation and recombination of its parts. The materiality of these boundaries, their threshold with others and the grey space within them is what Walsh’s work seeks to explore.
His work is informed by direct experience, and an on going curiosity towards human perception, technology and art. These investigations often take divergent paths, but recurring themes, such as the infinite; loops; symmetry; opposites; and voids are never too far from the surface.
Recent subject matters have included the stock market, seascapes, world cup finals, and doorways. But all of which are part of an ongoing investigation into the comprehension of art in relation to the objects, spaces, experiences, activities and institutions that uphold today’s cultural beliefs.
Walsh enjoys working at scale, from small photographic prints and video installations, to whole room and building sized installations. Through interventions formed by the fabric of reality, Walsh creates works that are at times inseparable from the environment that contains them. For the viewer this can create suspension of disbelief and a complex range of experiences from the mundane through to the spectacle.
Working in a variety of media Walsh utilizes subtle manipulation through to the extreme amplification of his subjects to open-up dialog between notions of space/time, architecture, real/virtual/simulated environments.
His work has been shown internationally with screenings and exhibitions at The Broad Stage (Los Angeles), the New Gallery (London, UK), Arena 1 Gallery, New Wight Gallery, Millard Sheets Gallery, Create: Fixate, and Wight Gallery (Los Angeles); 404 Festival of Electronic Art(Argentina). Featured in "Conversations with Artists: Jennifer Steinkamp", Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art (LACMA).
Walsh is a committed educator, and since 2007 has been teaching various Animation, video and photography based courses in the Department of Design Media Arts, UCLA.
Outside of his arts and teaching practice, Walsh has freelanced on numerous design projects including channel concept and animation design for the launch of MTV DESI. Installed social interactive artworks for Snibbe Interactive Inc, and from 2008 – 2010 he founded the Freelance Republic a new media interdisciplinary design studio. He is currently launching a sustainable living and environmentally friendly furniture company called, VVOODS - Reclaimed Wood Furniture of Los Angeles.
He now lives and works in Los Angeles, California.