Disaster, terror and hysteria are at the heart of David Burrows’ major new installation at Chisenhale Gallery.
The gallery’s ex-industrial space is strewn with what appears to be debris from a recent catastrophe or frenzied celebration. Collapsing structures, ripped shoes and fragments of clothing are arranged against a backdrop of large-scale photographs and architectural constructions. This aftermath is introduced at the entrance of the gallery by a fresco of a burst heart emblazoned with the slogan ‘The Modern Spirit is Never Again’.
However, the wreckage in New Life is brightly coloured and sparkling. The installation’s initial impression of devastation is interrupted by immaculate attention to detail and saturated colours. Burrows meticulously cuts his objects from soft materials such as foam and rubber, lending an air of optimism and joy to the ruins of New Life.
New Life fuses the formal qualities of scatter installation with the aesthetics of shop window dressing, resulting in a contradictory and complex visual language. Burrows sees the project as the equivalent of the nouveau roman, a form of French literature in which the chronology and causes of events are displaced or erased, creating a heightened sense of ambiguity.

Marianne Greated and Hill Johnston will use the Project Room to stage an exhibition of new works. Although they work as individual artists they see the show as a collaborative project. Through their paintings, both Johnston and Greated use people and environments to create an atmosphere or setting, within the gallery space.