Ned Vena

Ned Vena is an abstract painter. His conceptual, minimalist output relies on industrial materials and vinyl printing methods used in advertising banners and infographics. Alongside being an artist, Vena runs a commercial workshop which prints images on vinyl foil and produces cut-outs. His workshop provides services to many local artists and galleries. In his artistic compositions, Vena often incorporates custom commercially-produced  images and text, and in doing so, he blurs the boundaries between industrial goods manufacturing and non-material conceptual work.

The pieces shown in the exhibition arose as an attempt to create two distinct images with a single painting gesture. They form a specific commentary on the diffusion and fluidity of intellectual property online, where a work of art can exist in multiple identical iterations.

Vena placed two canvases on a stretcher and, applying a previously-printed vinyl template, he submerged the whole thing in industrial ink. The ink is a special compound typically used to print prices in supermarkets and is a favourite of graffiti artists. Vena’s work questions the privileged status of the painting gesture, reducing it to a process of reproduction and repetition so characteristic of industrial production.