Sebastian Thomas is based in Reading. Thomas’s practice is concerned with how perceptions of reality are mediated through language. The collages presented in MK Calling combine lithographic, silkscreen and digitally printed paper with drawn and painted elements. They are imagined landscapes based on Thomas’s interpretation of scenes from Russell Hoban’s novel Riddley Walker (1980) set in a post-nuclear Britain. They depict a parallel universe, where fragmented components of past and future collide to form a strange new reality. The images operate like maps of these barren landscapes, building surreal narratives from the objects that float within them. The pictorial planes are subjected to a form of structural disintegration as the compositional elements repel each other, dispersing to the edge of the paper. 

 

While language facilitates us in describing the world, it can also potentially obscure our view, creating a blind spot at the centre of our collective vision. This is reflected in Thomas’s work materially through the appropriation and deconstruction of images from the sprawl of imagery surrounding us, as well as the elevation of cheap industrial materials and discarded objects.