Go Big or Go Home

Images courtesy of Carpenter's Workshop Gallery/

An exhibition by Lionel Scoccimaro

Marseille – based sculptor, surfer and biker Lionel Scoccimaro explores the ways in which globalisation brings the margins from what was once counterculture—surfing, skateboarding, motorcycling — to the centre.

Go Big or Go Home is a phrase urging extravagance with an all or nothing response, indicating a desire to live life to the fullest. Here it showcases Scoccimaro’s appropriation of kitsch and popular culture, melding them with fine art techniques.

The glossy, surface details and oversized objects may be perceived as whimsical or playful touches but allude to darker realities and offer unsettling social commentary

With visual references and material techniques associated with biker/surf culture, the work alludes to exotic Tiki imagery and neo-Voodoo culture, which were prominent elements in the American surf scene of the 1950s and 60s.

The demand of Scoccimaro to fulfil his role as sculptor coupled with formal efficacy leads him to articulate a discussion of materials and size-scales in his work. Scoccimaro’s work plays with these appropriations, using contemporary society’s interest in clever, self-referential irony and post-modernism to hint at how the darker elements of our past can catch up with us in the present. He offers provoking insights wrapped in glossy, playful packages of pop-age veneers.

The exhibition runs through January 30, 2010 at the Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery/