From Andrew Frost…
Captain Haddock and Snowy have come to the end of a journey – or perhaps it’s the beginning of a new adventure: in a red desert somewhere, and under a rising full moon, the old Captain and the faithful dog have come face to face with the petrified visage of Tin Tin… A natural rock outcrop? Or an Easter Island-style God?
Nick Stathopoulos’s Another Mystery to Solve is featured in the third and perhaps final outing in his Toy Porn series at NG Art Gallery. The artist’s exacting super-realist style and the smooth surfaces of his canvases give a photographic sheen to a series of works that balance between nostalgia and tribute for Stathopoulos’s vintage toy collection. Among the works are images of Tin Tin, Astroboy, cowgirl Jessie from Toy Story, Felix the Cat and shortened and decidedly kawaii Godzilla.
Stathopoulos’s fans will undoubtedly appreciate his painting skills and the faithful rendering of the toys, packaging and the inclusion of subtle in-jokes, but when he resists pure nostalgia for an image that adds something more – such as in the unauthorised Tin Tin fantasy – the artist’s imagination takes the viewer somewhere new.
Until October 12
NG Art Gallery, Chippendale
Pic: Nick Stathopoulos, Another Mystery to Solve?, 2013. Acrylic and oil glaze on canvas ?92 x 122cm.
