Paul Bonomini Chaos
Chaos represents Bonomini’s most ambitious installation, culminating years of exploration into the transformative potential of industrial materials. Using repurposed air-conditioning ducting, the artist transforms rigid metal into fluid, serpentine forms that evoke both flowing waterways and charged atmospheric clouds. This tension between industrial matter and organic shapes examines our fragile environmental relationship.
The work reflects global supply chain vulnerabilities and our dependence on extractive infrastructures, highlighting the urgency of the climate crisis. An immersive soundscape, created collaboratively with sound designer Dave Hunt and featuring musical excerpts by Bruno Etienne, intensifies this atmospheric pressure. Speakers embedded within the ducting and throughout the gallery create surround-sound experiences of elemental forces: shattering ice, thunder, lightning, crackling fire, and the relentless ticking of a clock.
Through suspended, interlocking strands that appear both natural and industrial, Chaos probes the mounting temporal pressures of our environmental predicament, transforming the gallery space into a sensuous yet urgent environment of contemplation.