Young, fierce & talented:…In Dark Times art exhibition at Castlefield Gallery

…in Dark Times is the new group show from Castlefield Gallery, and features some truly fierce young talent. The majority of work is sculptural, with the exception of Bex Ilsley, who creates so-real-you-can-touch it tactile, digital landscapes and self-performance gifs and videos. With a roster of artists born from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s, this show explores the effects of our digital culture on art produced by natives of the era of information overload. This exhibition asks two questions, how do artists who live …in Dark Times deal with the disposability and overabundance of material? And, in the age of the internet, how can excess information be processed? Zadie Xa simply puts all her influences together, from Korean masked drama to American street fashion, to make loud costumes and wall hangings (Asian Gucci, 2016, pictured). Lindsey Mendick mines aesthetics from Botticelli to Liberace via well-known advert slogans (Hello Boys and Daddy or Chips) to create comical pastel sculptures and installations. Charlie Godet Thomas, James Ackerley and Rebecca Halliwell Sutton answer the former question, swapping out traditional marble and bronze for cheaper facsimiles such as rubber, cardboard and coloured, polished concrete with unanticipated yet stunning results.

Fri 24 Feb- Sat 15 Apr, Castlefield Gallery, 2 Hewitt Street, Manchester, M15 4GB, times vary, FREE, www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk