Exhibition by Rob Birch

“I Know Kung Fu” a journey through unreality. Nothing is real. We live to serve the machine world. It is a matrix of self-deception, a set of complex social and factional programs, designed to create the illusion of social, political and sexual liberty. This is a world of ‘unreality’. The traditional portrait is a tool of propaganda that conflates these illusions and what is admissible within this unreality.

“I Know Kung Fu” is a series of portraits that exposes the effect of this ‘unreality’ upon our notions of self and identity. I use what is permitted within the rules of this matrix to make new and challenging documents of identity that reveal the limits of who we think we are.

We cannot be satisfied with the knowledge that this unreality denies the existence of the uncommon and that, because of our protestations, we deserve to be broken. There is no going back. The time to create new ways of being and is now amongst us. Now is the time not to lose courage.

The gallery will be open to visitors during this exhibition with Covid safety measures in place. We would ask that visitors wear masks and maintain social distancing during their visit.