Phil Root: Phantom Limb

Phil Root presents a full gallery installation entitled Phantom Limb. Root references history and memory throughout the exhibition, producing works by a process of intuitive layering and erasure of both physical and historical attributes.

Upon entering the galleries, the viewer is confronted with a number of large plywood boards that act as display structures on which the artist composes arrangements of images, drawings and objects. Defaced coins, foggy landscapes, and other inclusions of absence and obscurity are layered and tied on with sail rope, offering an allusion to sea crossing, and trade and also to the use and exchange values of art itself.

The installation is hinged around a film which incorporates imagery from the gallery space, revealing the subtleties and intricacies of Root's artistic process. Within the film Root draws upon the ephemeral nature of currency. Focussing on coins, he explores the paradox between the visceral corruptibility of the coin, and the virtual existence of the monetary system. Here, unbeknown to the viewer, they have the opportunity to locate works that are partially hidden from view.