34 Fine Art Gallery features Asha Zero’s new works. Zero is known for hand painting intricate and densely layered images and surveying the artist’s latest body of work, there is a distinct shift to more stripped-down portraits and figures. In previous exhibitions, such as micro cluster picnic (2011) and numberrs (2012), the portraitures used to inhabit and blend with the artist’s virtual landscapes.

The effect of the new works however, is that the characters are no longer made to ‘blend into the background’. Trompe l’oeil (fooling the eye) remains evident in the work and, in conjunction with Pareidolia (tricking the brain), works to unify and complete the fragmented characters. Although the paintings have coalesced into more reduced entities there is a clear continuity with earlier exhibitions. Acrylic paint is still the medium and there is a strong reference to previous works, such as those presented in Winner in Hawaii (2004). In comparison however, the new works show a clearly elevated technical skill and complexity.

According to Asha Zero the previous paintings can be interpreted to be either portraits or landscapes – although emphasis is placed on blurring this distinction. The extent to which one may distinguish is determined by the tension between the figure and the background. This body of work with simplified backgrounds, as well as the addition of ‘full figures’ in the works CORRBIVALEX, V S X, and G H X, allows the fragmentary and serial elements to become prominent and stand alone – unobscured, ready to be recoded by the viewer.

The works in forget about the goohexx : send in the du_plicann extend the cast from the artist’s exhibition career. These avatars remain open to interpretation, alternating between frames of perception – male and female, mediated and accidental, online and offline – which highlights the interplay and fragmentation both within and between subjects.

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