toomer labzda is proud to present Blue Curry’s first US solo exhibition. In his visually seductive work, Curry assigns a fantastical exoticism to man-made materials. His idiosyncratic installations and objects float ambiguously between the ethnographic find, the souvenir and the contemporary art form. Curry’s simple and precise juxtapositions re-imagine the fetish for exoticism buried deep within Western culture.

The artist’s practice hovers in the space between formal elegance and the detritus of everyday life. A car tire enters a state of metamorphosis covered in a snakeskin pattern of beans; hand embellished nautical buoys become luxury baubles glittering with thousands of rhinestones; miles of audio cassette pour through the suspended jaw of a bull shark to the floor like a couture dress.

In this exhibition Curry mixes the utilitarian and the natural, removing his objects from function and instant recognition. There is something absurd and familiar about his assemblage as he continues to jam clichéd visual codes with wry wit. Driven by a sense of play, the new identities these objects assume are minimal yet luxurious.

Blue Curry was born in Nassau, Bahamas and lives and works in London and Nassau. He has a BA (Hons) in Photography & Multimedia from the University of Westminster, London and received a Fine Art MFA from Goldsmiths College, London in 2009. Curry has exhibited in the United Kingdom, United States, Europe and throughout the Caribbean with a recent solo show at Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden, Germany. He has participated in the 6th Liverpool Biennial in Liverpool, UK , and in group shows in The Art Museum of the Americas, Washington DC, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Puerto Rico, and the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. Currently his work can be viewed at Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK as part of Emergency 5.