Fleshmonger.png, 2023

Ceramic tiles, marble, Jesmonite, paint, OSB board

Dimensions variable

STATEMENT

In what would have been the Sainsbury’s fresh meats section, sits a series of slanted plinths that evoke a fragmented deli counter, with various fleshly objects set into their tiled surfaces. Fleshmonger.png comprises sculpted noses and ears, alongside flat, marble sausages, chicken legs and other cuts of meat. Set into chequered tiles, the domestic material backdrop mimics the virtual non-space of a PNG image background. Objects float, dislocated, waiting to be projected onto a given context. Rosenberg places the psychology of flesh somewhere between two and three dimensions; bodily appetites lie between physical and virtual realms. These familiar shapes pop up, reminiscent of a toddler’s toy, slotting shapes into corresponding holes; a Whack-a-mole arcade game; a Mr Potato Head approach to forming an image of the corporeal self.

BIOGRAPHY

Ally Rosenberg (b.1991) is a London-based artist from Manchester. In playful combinations of traditional and contemporary modes of sculpture, his work looks at the material and bodily emergence of conscious and unconscious experience. After graduating from Central St. Martins, he took an academic detour into cognitive neuroscience, completing an MSc at UCL and a residency at Harvard’s neuro-imaging lab. This period of research, looking at the interface of anatomy and experience, through the multiple planes of MRI images, influences Ally’s recent sculptural work. Slicing and casting materials – whether humble and industrial or luxurious and domestic – with a structural quality that reveals a relationship between image and object.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

2 – Zero Hunger

3 – Good Health and Well-being

12 – Responsible Consumption and Production