I am an artist exploring the human condition through the lens of technology.
Invisible Forces
2020
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4K, 45 minute loop, unique edition.
Arranged Structures
2020
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4K, 60 minute loop, unique edition.
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I am contemporary artist who utilises procedural algorithms in motion and physical forms in order to create contemplative experiences enticing the viewer to look inward and discover the true nature of ourselves.
2019 April *Data Blue, Galerie Pom Pom
2019 Creek Street Project, Architectural Video Installation
2019 Arteles Artist Residency, Haukijärvi, Finland
2018 Armory Award : SOP Artist in Residence
Finalist 2018 Churchie Emerging Artist, QUT Art Museum
Finalist 2018 Hurdford Portrait Prize, Lismore Gallery
Finalist 2018 40th Alice Prize, NT
Finalist 2018 Hidden Sculpture Walk - * Highly Commended
"My purpose is to explore the realms of the human psyche, through the lens of technology"
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(KCL) Kenneth Craig Lambert - Artist
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Background
Kenneth Craig Lambert (KCL) is a contemporary artist, an international award winning designer and director born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1971.
He currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia. He has been accredited with a Bachelor of Arts and Design from the University of Western Sydney, with high distinction.
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He is creative director and co-founder of Ink, a creative company specialising in design and branding. In recent years KCL has created unique brands such as SBS Studio and Foxtel Arts. His career in design extends across spatial design, originally a museum designer (The Earth Exchange and the Museum of Creativity), then transitioning into motion design and branding where his creative expertise has seen him create over 90 media brands across 12 countries and 4 continents.
In 2008 he launched his second enterprise, Sheepish Lion that specialises in live action, film and content production for international brands. KCL has long been a sought after live action director for international film stars and campaigns. As an international designer and director he has won over 150 awards for his creative excellence. His creativity has been showcased in museums, achieved “best of show” at both local and international award shows, and featured in various creative magazines both on-line and in print.
2020 Feb 05, Incandescent Bloom : Artereal Gallery - Sydney
2019 Blacktown City Art Prize: Western Sydney
2019 Art for Social Change: Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Modify Prospect, Coma Gallery, Sydney
2019 Grand Prix Winner of One Self - See.me NYC
2019 Data Blue, Galerie pompom, Sydney
2019 Arteles Artist Residency, Haukijärvi, Finland
Artist Statement
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For me art is a response to a bigger question posed by metaphysics.
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"I create because it's a way of defining my existence. Seeking out the sublime is the way I reinforce that purpose."
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I deconstruct and then rebuild using instinctive and primal modalities to convey my humanity. The work itself is a result of an ongoing internal dialogue. I deconstruct the world around me and then reassemble with a specific theme in mind. Making art and exhibiting is a way of marking time, revealing where you are within that journey. The irony here is you can never see your true self since the idea of truth is always distorted through the lens in which it is observed. (ref: Quantum Physics, the Observer effect)
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As I perceive the world and I am inspired by it. I strive to create work that conveys the human condition through the exploration of metaphysical themes. Travelling above the earth at 10,000 km I find myself pressed against the glass attempting to fathom the vast expanse of the world.
Landing in a new culture, your senses are heightened on a conscious level as you take in the new, the unfamiliar.
After some investigation you can observe universal ideas occurring within that culture. Themes of a creation, belief systems, a sense of organisation for the way the world is perceived. There are distinct and recurring patterns within all cultures, ways of understanding that are universal. I want to create work that captures a sense of the universe, the scale, a ritualisation of understanding. I want to create work that contributes to the perpetual energy for the human condition.
2018 Churchie Emerging Artist, QUT
Home @735 Group Show Materiality
Featuring the "Crucible".
Breathe
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Crucible
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Succumb 2016,
Static: 790 x 1365 mm
Metallic photographic print
face mounted onto 10mm Acrylic.
"Collective consciousness, geometry and procedural generation: the art of Kenneth Craig Lambert is like nothing you’ve ever seen!" Happy magazine.
This work reflects my personal experience transitioning into a professional artist. I put myself under allot of pressure to make this happen.
As an artistic director I had become accustomed to team based projects. Doing everything yourself, learning new complex and highly technical skills under a tight time frame puts allot of strain yourself and those around you. The Crucible is my "baptism by fire".
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The work will lead into physical forms in future endeavours. Join the mailing list to see how this direction evolves.
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Sequential Images with audio
Single channel video: 60 min loop
Dimension: 1080 x1920 pixels.
Threshold, the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to begin to produce an effect: the threshold of consciousness.
"As a multi contemporary artist Kenneth Craig Lambert’s practice explores themes of the collective conscious and psychology".
KCL utilises procedural algorithms in motion, static imagery and physical forms to deliver a hybrid art form. The artist strives to create an immersive experience enticing the viewer to look inward and discover the true nature of ourselves.
Sequential Images with Audio
Duration: 120 min
Dimension: 1080 x1920 pixels.
Part 01
Sequential Images with Audio
Duration: 10 min
Dimension: 1080 x1920 pixels.
Out of the Shadows, 2017
Works on Paper: 1 to 12
Dimensions: 29 cm x 42 cm
Media: Archival inks and pigment
on 230gsm cold pressed paper.
Inspiration and Influences
I am seeking the sublime. The works of Pollack, Rothko, Kapoor and Gormley achieve this notion in very different ways. The explosive action paintings of Pollock releasing his inner demons onto canvas in sharp contrast to Rothko’s simple colour fields vibrating violently against one another achieving the sublime. In the physical realm, Kapoor and Gormley create enigmatic, sometimes confronting experiences that lead to a sense of the spiritual.
Film is also great source inspiration for me.
Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey is something that defies a linear narrative and encourages the viewer to think and feel beyond our learnt understanding. Accepting that we are both integral and insignificant in the grand universal plan. The ambiguity of this, I feel, is the space I strive to be in. Whether we have the power to determine our own fate or whether we are under a preordained plan. I am not certain but that is part of the journey of understanding one’s true self.
I started my working career as a Museum designer.
I was attracted to the convergence of various disciplines, graphic design, spatial thinking and film, all coming together to make an experience. During this period
two important fundamentals triggered my curiosity for
art making.
Firstly I was invited to join the foundation team to build
a museum dedicated to human creativity. I spent three
years working with cognitive and creative physiologists exploring what makes us creative and how we can encourage humanity to harness the power of its
creativity as a whole.
The second trigger was learning that creativity happens in many ways, be it social, cultural, inherited, taught or learnt. These two perspectives have stayed with me since, and in my travels I find myself deeply curious to investigate different cultures, especially through art and creativity.
This collective response and the creative mechanisms utilised by different cultures really captivates my interest and is a point of inspiration for me.
Music and soundscapes are a great influence on my sense of perception. I see both visual and audio as intertwined mediums, one complementing the other. Sound, even white noise has a frequency that can affect the way we perceive our world or the art we create.
Sound for me is critical to your understanding of the context of emotion. In terms of music the compositions of Steve Reich, Thom Yorke (Radiohead) and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan inspire ephemeral qualities, which lead to a sense of spatial thinking and feeling. Their compositions can be perceived in a metaphysical manner, existentialist in variations of tone and melody. I seek to create these variations in sequential imagery, and then transcribe them between modalties. These expansive soundscapes reveal to me a divine complexity and so a homage to the mechanics of nature.
26 October – 20 November 2016
Stack Projects Gallery
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As a contemporary artist Kenneth Craig Lambert’s practice explores themes the relationship between the human psyche and technology. Lambert utilises procedural algorithms in motion, static imagery and physical forms to deliver a hybrid art form. The artist strives to create an immersive experience enticing the viewer to look inward and discover the true nature of ourselves.
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2017 Brave Butterfly Gala: Debra Australia
These 3 artist prints where donated to the Brave Butterfly Gala charity event to help raise funds and awareness for EB (Epidermolysis bullosa).
Still from sequence: Breath 2015
Process
In my practice I transition from vertical planes (painting) to sequential imaging (video) and intersecting forms in space (sculpture). The medium is not the message; it’s simply the medium. I am not interested in being a painter, sculptor or media artist. I am interested in art being an expression of one’s true self. My ambition is to be a master of immersive art, a purveyor of emotion, neither formed or formless, a transition, a pregnant pause, a contemplation, a truth, a moment although fleeting, felt deeply.
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Carl Jung described the “Shadow” archetype as the reflection of one’s true self. This is the animal side of our personality, which is the source of both our creative and destructive energies.
In my work I utilise saturated colour fields and reductive forms, I deconstruct organic materials then rebuild with the context of the “collective unconscious”.
I look for universal themes and emotive constructs within the abstracted forms. Once dissected, I then reassemble the forms into compositions, give them evocative titles, which are clues to decode the intention behind each work.
For me a successful piece works on many levels, firstly viscerally, the work like a flower needs to entice. Then if the viewers allow themselves time the dialogue can become deeper, uniquely personal to the individual.
I use technology to create procedural patterns coupled with reflection to deliver immersive experiences. I fall into a hybrid category because these experiences are driven by technology. An irony I cannot escape is that it’s actually technology, which now shapes our collective consciousness far more than traditional mechanisms like culture.
We now deploy our ideas, thoughts, musings and value systems impulsively across the globe at an astounding rate. So naturally I am seduced by technology, its smooth reflective surfaces promising an enriched life. So it seems appropriate to deliver my art using the very technology that I feel subverts our humanity.
Out of the Shadows, 2017
Dimensions: Spilt Panel 611 cm x 220 cm
Each panel (138 cm x 220 cm)
Media: Archival inks, oil and charcoal on linen.
Influences:
Artists:
Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko,
Anish Kapoor and Anthony Gormley.
Composers:
Steve Reich, Thom Yorke and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Film makers:
Stanley Krubrick, Steve McQueen, Julian Rosefel
Still from sequence: Foundation 2015
Out of the Shadows, 2017
Works on Paper: 1 to 12
Dimensions: 29 cm x 42 cm
Media: Archival inks and pigment
on 230gsm cold pressed paper.