Neal Rock constructs work from pigmented silicone; piped, layered and splattered onto surfaces or sculpted volumes. Although he describes himself as a painter, his manipulation of the oozing matter of the silicone makes the work very three-dimensional. Inspired equally by the process paintings of Jackson Pollock and the vulgar effects of 1970’s and 80’s horror movies, he creates painting-sculptures that have an anthropomorphic physicality and eeriness.
Newbetter is a research-led, content-driven curatorial design agency. With the ambition to organize and curate complex information and ideas into spatial and visual experiences, they have contributed to a wide range of research and exhibition projects, including Shrinking Cities, Can Buildings Curate?, Airspace and Hydan. In 2005 Newbetter commissioned Neal Rock to produce his first public work on the façade of the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York as part of their Can Buildings Curate? exhibition. In 2006 they collaborated on Hydan, at FA Projects in London, on a work that drew inspiration from their collective cultural backgrounds and integrated the influences of painter Jackson Pollock, philosopher Roland Barthes, architect Le Corbusier and horror movie director George A. Romero.
Hydan explored the typology of the hut, the most basic unit of architecture, and its use as a setting for monstrous fear in many horror movies. Newbetter constructed a setting based on Le Corbusier’s Cabanon in Roquebrune, France, for Rock’s grotesquely beautiful silicone painting-sculptures. |
