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bio:

 

Born in Norwich, UK in 1996, Oliver Ventress studied Fine Art at the University of Lincoln, of which he graduated in 2017 and went on to complete an MA in the following years. He was an Associate Artist of Mansions of the Future in 2018, and in 2019 he held a studio space in Nottingham as part of the BACKLIT residency program. He was one of 15 nationally selected artists in the UK New Artist Collective in 2022, working with UK New Artists and SO Festival. He currently co-runs General Practice, an artist collective and contemporary project space and studios in the city of Lincoln. In 2023 he exhibited at the Auxiliary Gallery, Middlesbrough alongside Bill Viola, Martin Creed and Vito Acconci, and held his first solo show Space Time Matter at Lincoln Art Centre. 

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see CV

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statement:

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With a practice combining video, sculpture and installation, Oliver Ventress explores philosophies of being as a medium. This often encompasses unknowns such as the future of the world and notions of what will remain once human beings no longer inhabit the Earth. There is a particular preoccupation with extraterrestrial beings and potential visitation - working in response to seeking, being in pursuit of, and waiting. There is an attempt to communicate to above by using the terrain itself – to find common ground. By splitting components of the landscape apart from each other – sky, earth, sun, water – Ventress attempts to understand the planet as if it is a sculptural object. The piece Everything Has Turned to Dust (2022) was installed in a recent show where all that remained was the terrain below our feet and the sun in the sky, and the audience invited to walk amongst this empty landscape. 

 

Working with rudimentary analogue technology and with concerns of an uncertain future, the documents occupy a physical space in plastic casing, away from the instability of cyberspace and digital corruption. They wait to be discovered by our successors: human or otherwise. Footage is recorded data: it exists post-event, attempting to provide evidence for something which is unproven, or unidentified. Videos on cassette tapes produce a linear timeline or pathway of a journey set in time. Placed onto monitors or framed as stills they become objects to be encountered, providing a visual investigation into movement; presence; potentiality.

 

Other noteable works have included a sonic sculpture ringing at the frequency of the moon (Hollow Moon, 2023), an 8mm cassette film of a series of attempts to make contact with aliens (Extraterrestrial, 2017), the formation of a UFO spotting network (ongoing archive), a para-terrestrial seance (The Ventress Test, 2019) and the documented seeking of a sea monster (Pursuit, 2019).

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