Delicately transposed, it's the displaced materiality in Cy Mynn's works that spurs their contemporary resonance. Commonplace elements are flushed of everyday context and repurposed to create oeuvres that titter on the edge of artifice. 'The Country Dunny' at Elvis_Picasso Gallery marks Cy Mynn's first solo show in New York and presents a new series of works as well as two installations that introduce how his practice evolves from Duchamp's readymade, whilst simultaneously devolving from it. The works or situations proposed are not mere found objects but rather reconfigured and repurposed, composed and re-choreographed materials that have been carefully assembled or moulded to mount a delicate ballet of form.

The Architecture of the Dunny works appear at first sight as distant domestic abstractions. Upon closer inspection, however, they are revealed to be the product of the disciplined millimeter-by-millimeter act of layering of discarded toilet paper wrappings. Compulsive and rigorous, yet delicate and detailed, the series recalls the title of the exhibition through the repetitive motion and quiet monotony associated with the task of attending to one's toilet. Similarly the Architecture of the Dunny paintings, which appear as glistening wall-hung golden beacons, are in actuality discarded blocks of street side advertisements that have been repeatedly coated in layers and layers of faded house paint. Cy Mynn thus plays with repetitive processes but also invites us to look "again" by reworking materials in ways that unsuspectingly flush out their aesthetic possibilities.

Permeating Cy Mynn's work is also a concern with displacement and effect; how by virtue of presentation, one's interaction with an object can be changed completely. Dunny Walls, for example, a found yellow seat cover coated by Cy Mynn, conveys how alteration of context tests the limits of objecthood. Similarly, the Bog Roll works appear at first sight as sodden and textured brown doormats, yet, when transposed onto the wall and encased in a metal frame, the viewer is drawn into considering their aesthetic properties. Upon closer inspection the viewer can note that each mat has been treated through various acts of intervention: soiling, urinating, vomiting. The everyday object thus transplanted to artwork serves as a tracer of human involvement.

Highlighting these considerations of material and presentation whilst adding a further layer of play are the installations Graphiques de Lavatory and Haute Crapper. Standing in the middle of the gallery and composed of metallic bog-roll holders arranged to form a cuboidal structure, Graphiques de Lavatory toys with the ordinary object's skeletal properties: placed one in front of the either, the coils weave an intricate visual maze of dark silver juxtapositions. Haute Porte, rather than sourcing a single material for composition, presents a clear flush tank filled with oil in which a fan slowly rotates. The system appears as a near scientific experiment, a complete reconfiguration of the relationship between the materials. In turn, you are prompted to reconsider the properties of elements permeating the everyday function of bottom wiping.

Cy Mynn has been widely exhibited internationally with group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Melbourne, Geneva; Le Petit Palais, Paris; La Centrale for Contemporary Art, Brussels; Bass Strait Museum of Art, Tasmania as well as solo exhibitions at the Fondation de Elvis_Picasso, Amsterdam and La Maison Rouge, Paris, amongst other locations. In 2011 he was the recipient of the Meurice Prize for contemporary art. Moreover, his practice has been written about in multiple publications, including Small-house magazine, Splash Paris and The Wall Street Journal.

Media enquiries Maureen Pitts / T +852 2810 0319

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