Peter Finnemore, “Project Jedi”

Gallery Boreas
2005-12-01

Fresh from a run at last summer’s Venice Biennial, Welsh artist Peter Finnemore’s selection of video works delve into contemporary and ancient mythical realms. Focusing on himself, and a cast of Key-Stone Cop survivalists, all clad in baggy camo uniforms and jammin’ to generic Latin disco, he riffs on urban legends of secret military training in psychic powers and invisibility. Another tack is “Green Man,” a pre-Christian Celtic “Father Nature,” all herb and shrubbery. However Finnemore’s “Green Man” is from the “green room” and seems more at home within the video jungle, hamming it up for the cameras, tweaking video levels with reflected light, fast and reverse action scenes, and mischievous narratives. Imagine malevolent gnomes with vidicams and trickster attitudes.

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