Johnathan Onyschuk: Bone Meal | Artlab Gallery
Join us in the Artlab Gallery this Thursday, June 20 from 5-7pm for the opening reception of MFA candidate Johnathan Onyschuk's thesis show, "Bone Meal."
The exhibition runs from June 20 - July 4, and consists of monumental avatars, WWI junk and wooden sculpture.
In 75 A.C.E Greek biographer Plutarch wrote on the aftermath of the defeat of Tuton and Ambrones tribes in Rome, different accounts report the inhabitants of Massilia made fences round their vineyards with the bones, and that the ground, enriched by the moisture of the putrefied bodies yielded at the season a prodigious crop. Bone Meal is a multimedia installation that explores the relationships between escapist fantasy violence and real world conflicts. Virtual avatars become the calloused husk from which we enjoy the exploited violence and heroism of the past; first as tragedy, second as farce and third as larp. The exhibited works examine the entertainment value of historical trauma and it’s hyper-mobility in the virtual space.
Warrior culture is the insufferable masculine hangover everyone else has to nurse and entertain. Every year a new video game or Netflix show comes out based on the “true events” of war and conflict and every year we lazily consume it like a dog eating the same food for it’s whole life. I find myself trapped in this reoccurring pattern of violent consumption, this work is generated from the bits of flesh consumed while trying to gnaw myself free.
