Michael Hoppen Gallery is delighted to announce the exhibition, RE-ANIMATOR; by Belgian artist Sammy Slabbinck. This is the third exhibition of the artist’s collage works at the gallery.

In a deserted landscape, tiny alpinists venture the ascent of a woman’s leg, entire families swim in a bowl of blue soup, part of a mountain range threatens to creep up to a city, a cowboy sits astride a small bird, children fly through the sky in a pleasure boat. You are not hallucinating while viewing the work of Sammy Slabbinck.

Using cuttings from vintage magazines, such as Playboy and Paris Match, Slabbinck composes an absurd universe with a novel, poetic harmony. He jokingly calls himself a ‘re- animator’.

Sammy Slabbinck (born 1977), creates dynamic surrealist-contemporary collages. Found images are decontextualized and re-appropriated as Slabbinck plays with scale and juxtaposition. Using humour as a visual tool he choreographs compositions, meditating on the past while revealing the absurdity of popular culture. Witty, at times dark, and often visually psychedelic, the simplicity of his compositions belies the complexity of the work. Slabbinck has recently started working with “layered collages”, mounted onto boards. Floating on their supports the collages acquire a whole new dimension, becoming almost sculptural.

Slabbinck’s collages are often published as illustrations and have been featured in The New Yorker, The Telegraph and Der Spiegel. He has also made the artwork for many album covers, among which is You Want it Darker by Leonard Cohen.