BEN CULLEN WILLIAMS DOWN FROM THE SUMMIT

28 September - 10 January 2025 Galleria SARP

SARP is pleased to present Ben Cullen Williams Down from the Summit a new body of works fruit of his residency period in Linguaglossa Etna North. Within much of Williams’ work there is a sense of exploration, to reimagine our overly documented landscapes through a new lens or mode of presentation. Teasing out new meanings that are present in the Anthropocene and presenting our world as one in continual movement and changed at a point of continual creation and destruction.

The world's natural landscapes are continually observed by digital means, many for positive ends and some for negative ambitions. Volcanos, moments of immense force upon the Earth’s Crust remind us of our humanity and fragility in the face of our planet's might. Overtime rituals, myths and stories have been created around volcanoes, aiming to make sense of their presence. Currently volcanoes are continually monitored through a range of digital equipment in order to keep humankind safe within their proximity.
Within this new body of work created while on a residency located at the base of mount Etna, Williams’ used this as a base to explore our relationship to ritual, matter, artefact and technology, seeing the unseen and the dialogue between the natural and artificial worlds.In July 2024, while Etna was erupting Williams’ climbed to the crater and used one of these tools to document the explosion’s. He employed a military grade thermal camera, which employs a passive sensor that extracts infrared radiations from human bodies and objects with a temperature above the absolute zero. While on the crater also he turned the camera upon himself, to document any visible change in his own bodily temperature.
Through running these thermal images of the volcanic explosion and his own body through an algorithm to make hybrid images of the two, seeing both images as different manifestations of carbon, he created a new set of images complemented by video footage that became life in motion. These digital images will be printed onto dyed canvas, through a ritualistic process in a studio at the base of Etna, Williams’ used natural pigments such as carbon to destroy pristine fabric. The canvases will be turned over to see the pigments bleeding through to reveal an unseen world, mirroring the Earth’s crust and magma below.Through these oscillations, between the natural and the artificial spheres, Williams forges a new material language, hybrid landscapes, new modes of seeing the world contributing to the current debate of what is a painting. 
In the video, Williams showcases the perpetuation of time and the forces of destruction and construction, where the video loops create infinite possibilities. The mesmerising nature of the video allows the viewer to reflect on the process of artistic evolution.