Storybook Life

Come with me
And you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination
We'll begin with a spin
Traveling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy explanation
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanna change the world?
There's nothing to it.
There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

Stories are the code that program our realities. Chandler creates site specific installations expanding the boundaries of pictorial space to compassionately include the viewer and in doing so he creates a heterotopic reality. The artist works in a variety of media but is best known for his crocheted queer arenas which explore themes of gender fluidity, community, belonging and joy. The possibility of narratives with in a singular work, between the viewer and a piece, and the works relationally to one another allows for an intersectional lens of co-creation in which multiple stories are woven together.

For this installation Chandler takes inspiration from the Dionysiac Frieze The Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii. The characters within Storybook Life channel a Dionysian energy that results in a union. This kind of marriage of opposites, known in the Latin as a coincidentia oppositorum informs Chandler’s work. Mining art history and engaging with contemporary narratives, the artist’s admiration for the artistic practice of David Hockney and Rose Wylie are clear with their depictions in this exhibition. Chandler continues a British theme with School Bois by creating a work in response to boys wearing skirts in England to protest prep-school dress codes. Chandler’s work plays with the notion of gender, blurring the binary with ambiguous, vibrantly abstract figures. His work allows for endless possibilities of self-discovery and reflection whilst opening many portals to explore our imaginations.

Pure Imagination was written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley for the 1971 version of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory