Notes

Trained as a painter, Cameron Platter’s output is marked by its vivid colour palette, surreal humour and recombinant visual style, which sutures together quotations from consumer society, popular media and art history. This lot appeared on his 2014 exhibition in Cape Town, one of a trio of painted wood sculptures mimicking a washing machine, refrigerator and – here – assembly of wheeled bin and three plastic-moulded chairs. The series was collectively titled Aspirational Dimensional Combines. The works keyed into a larger body of works exploring ideas of consumption, excess and detritus by combining ‘unorthodox and transient sources’ with classical materials.1 Alongside his wood sculptures mimicking utilitarian plastic objects Platter also exhibited hand-woven wool tapestries featuring abstracted designs based on interracial porn and ceramics linked to everyday vessels like buckets and beer pots. His aim was to document and mark our ‘dysfunctional contemporary reality’.²

Sean O’Toole

1. Andrew McClintock. (2016) ‘Cameron Platter’ in NYAQ, Issue 6. Page 10.
2. Layla Leiman. (2014) ‘Cameron Platter talks about his current show, I SAW THIS’ 10and5 (13 February) [Online] Available: https://10and5.com/2014/02/13/featuredcameron-platter-talks-about-his-new-show/ [8 December 2018].

Exhibited

WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, I Saw This, 12 February to 29 March 2014.

Literature

Cameron Platter. (2014) I Saw This, Cape Town: WHATIFTHEWORLD. Illustrated in colour on page 151.