1000 Yard Stare: Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK

In The 1000 Yard Stare Gordon Cheung shows a series of works, made between 2004-7, which offer a poetic and disturbing reflection of the drama and trauma of contemporary life. Cheung's super-real paintings capture hallucinations between the virtual and actual realities of our globalised world reflecting how we entered the new millennium with one threatening wave of apocalypse after another, harshly underlined by the 9/11 attacks and the global War on Terror, while the world continues to grapple with its fragile relationship to nature itself. Working with spray-paint, oils, acrylics, pastels, ink and pages of the Financial Times' stock listings, he also makes references to popular culture, mythology, iconic paintings, magazines and the internet. Martin Holman's essay expands on the ideas behind Cheung's work and the origins of the exhibition's title. Both the artist and aspex would like to give special thanks to the Elspeth and Imogen Turner Collection without whose support this exhibition would not have been possible.