Metal Box

Executed in 2010, Jim Lambie’s Metal Box encapsulates the artist’s ability to transform everyday materials into fantastical apparitions. Spanning collage, installation and sculpture, his multi-media practice playfully probes the psychological impact of colour, form and space, grounded in his own relationship with popular culture. Inspired by the layers of band posters he observed on the street walls of his native Glasgow, the Metal Boxes comprise sheets of aluminium, stacked and curled at the corners to mimic the crinkled appearance of paper exposed to the elements. Each sheet is painted a different colour on either side, thus creating a hypnotic kaleidoscopic spectrum when folded back. ‘It’s hard to predict how the colour combinations will look’, the artist explains. ‘I like that the work makes itself’ (J. Lambie, quoted in N. Forrest, ‘The Genius of Jim Lambie’s “Zero Concerto” at Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney’, Blouin Art Info, 1 September 2015).