Justin Hibbs

Arróniz presents a new body of work by British artist Justin Hibbs, celebrating his return with a second solo exhibition at the gallery.

Arroniz unveils a new body of work by British artist Justin Hibbs, celebrating his return for a second solo show at the gallery. The exhibition delves into a dynamic interplay between sound and image, highlighting the tension between analogue, mechanised and digital modes production and reproduction. Hibbs conjures a landscape transformed by swiftly shifting information networks, where once-stable channels like newspapers dissolve into a fragmented architecture, and dissonance pulses through both the visual and sonic.

This exhibition picks up threads from his previous show, Between, Before and After (2018), the passage of time breathing new life into the works on display. Fragile scraps of newspaper, accidental remnants once overlooked and salvaged from the 2018 project, now reappear transformed—magnified into striking enlargements at monumental scale. Their discordant marks and fractured narratives circle back, echoing a moment that seemed to anticipate the present. Back then, the proliferation of digital information platforms and a post-truth reality were still emergent in our culture and political discourse, today these shifts have accelerated reshaping our information landscape and leaving the authority of traditional media hanging by a thread. The works ask probing questions how visual art might address this moment, a shifting, borderless terrain, whilst celebrating the pathos and beauty to be found in these disintegrating fragments suspended in time.

The immersive sound work featured in the exhibition is composed and produced by Synthesis Sound Archive, Hibbs’ ongoing collaboration with musicians Ben Lancaster (modular Synths) and Sean Roche (saxophones), with contributions from Francine Loze on cello and David X Green on piano. The collective weaves together music and visual art, delving into the vibrant connections between underground music’s storied past, its evolving present, and the visual cultures that orbit these sonic worlds.

—Arróniz