Retrograde. By Jimmy Langer. Megalo Print Gallery, 21 Wentworth Avenue, Kingston. Until August 19.
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Jimmy Langer graduated from the Canberra School of Art and then shifted to Melbourne. This year he returned to Canberra for his second residency at the Megalo Print Studio.
![Nightwalk, 2017 by Jimmy Langer in Retrograde at Megalo Photo: Supplied Nightwalk, 2017 by Jimmy Langer in Retrograde at Megalo Photo: Supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/8eba753b-9c2b-4744-8fbf-e1f4e500503a/r0_0_1603_1999_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
As a printmaker, Langer employs a fairly conventional screenprint technology, but his input of imagery is anything but conventional. As I understand it, he digitally maps his environment in which he combines the physical, the imagined and the observed and then these digital records undergo what appears to be a painstaking pixel manipulation designed to interrupt any coherent reading.
There seem to be aerial maps of Canberra combined with images of people and nature and the whole is subjected to surface patterns and spreading fans of soft pastel colours. Within this process of deliberate disorientation, we catch glimpses of objects that seem to be embedded within these abstractions.
![<i>Red Ellipse</I> is one of Jimmy Langer's more engaging and intriguing screen prints on paper. <i>Red Ellipse</I> is one of Jimmy Langer's more engaging and intriguing screen prints on paper.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/0693a162-dfcc-46af-9203-0dd4b314b3b7/r0_0_1131_1096_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
These complex images are screen printed on to large sheets of paper or transparent sheets of acrylic creating a fanciful reality where there is little present to guide us to read the work. Langer's world seems out of joint and we are invited to navigate a path through images that we cannot quite decipher as to whether we are observing the world from an aerial or ground level perspective or a real or imagined environment. It is a world that is made up of many and varied incidents that have been accumulated over a period of time, but then twisted, juxtaposed and pulled apart, so that invariably each viewer will have a different impression of what he or she is observing.
A highlight of the exhibition is the sizeable installation Looking glass, where Langer has incorporated physical space into his constructed spaces. There are two screen printed sheets of Perspex, or acrylic glass, and when I viewed it with the strong afternoon light streaming in through the windows, the imagery gained a kinetic quality and seemed to move and glow.
Of the more regular screen prints on paper, Centrifugal, Day walk and Red Ellipse are some of the more engaging and intriguing compositions where there is a combination of what can be seen and what we imagine we can see.
The attractive thing about Langer's work is that he loves to demolish boundaries, not only in his mediums and techniques, but also in his modes of thought. His invitation is for us to walk with him on the wild side, where he introduces us to a world in which the public space of observable reality merges with the private space of the imagination and meaning is no longer fixed or stable.
![Reflect, 2017 by Jimmy Langer in Retrograde at Megalo. Photo: Supplied Reflect, 2017 by Jimmy Langer in Retrograde at Megalo. Photo: Supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/15d12a42-9ae0-40ff-8230-0cc3aa02051a/r0_0_1276_1911_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
For all of its lyrical trappings this is quite an unsettling and disturbing exhibition.