Description/
An avid observer with a keen perception and eye for the obscure, Jonathan Trayte poignantly examines the ways in which we perceive and utilize natural resources. Finding the surreal in the quotidian, his playful, off-the-wall objects offer a nuanced commentary on the universal language of consumerism.
Exemplary of Trayte’s tongue-in-cheek sensibility, Boobie (2021), a 2.3-meter stack of powder pink aluminum orbs, is axiomatic of Trayte’s embrace of contradictions between the organic and the artificial. Rendered from naïve forms with a pastel palette and child-like title, Boobie points to the link between the media and the sexualization of form and color. Trayte himself says, “Color is so important as a means of persuasion, persuading people to consume in particular kinds of ways, or in appealing to specific social groups. I create synthetic painted veneers and compositions of materials that either reflect or distort this language; they’re like skins of paint or textures that create a kind of chameleon appearance…”.
Cast Iron.
Jonathan Trayte
designer
Trayte was born in 1980 in Huddersfield, UK. Coming from a background in fine art sculpture, Trayte received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from University of the Creative Arts Canterbury in 2004 and a Masters of Fine Arts from Royal Academy Schools in 2010. Trayte combines his broad experiences in other fields—including as a chef and foundry metal worker—with his keen eye for finding the obscure aspects of daily life that would typically go unnoticed. “The work that I tend to make comes together all at once, like a cast of characters,” says Trayte. “There’s always some weird older brother, the ‘black sheep,’ that doesn’t quite fit.”
Using a wide range of materials, methods and processes, his work explores the psychology of desire through surface, material, light and color. In thinking of food as a basic material, he uses castings and facsimiles to examine the many ways in which we perceive and utilize our resources.
His work has been included in numerous international exhibitions including Psychotropics, The New Art Centre, Wiltshire, UK (2020); The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018); Tropicana, Christies, London (2017), Milk, Christies, London (2016), Polyculture, The Tetley, Leeds, UK (2016); Experiments in Consuming, The Kings School, Canterbury, UK (2016); and The Shoppers Guide, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2015). Recently, Trayte was selected by Sculpture in the City to create a large-scale site-specific installation entitled The Spectacle (2019) in London.
Trayte lives and works in London.
Date/
2021
Color/
Pink
Material/
Aluminum, Metal Steel
Dimension/
100.0 x 100.0 x 233.0 cm (39.4 x 39.4 x 91.7 in)
Style/
Contemporary
Heritage/
Britain
Ships from/
London
