Roy Ananda: Further Annotations

In Roy Ananda’s on-going Annotation series, the artist obsessively outlines, fragments and transcribes images from iconic works of art and films - annotating them with fictional references drawn from pop-culture, folklore, mythology and art history. Ananda's project takes its cues from the meta-fictional tradition of Alan Moore’s 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' and Neil Gaiman’s 'The Sandman', where characters, artefacts, and concepts from a wide range of fictional universes coexist in the same narrative space. These drawings, like so many of Ananda’s other odes to pop-culture fandom, are intended to be both a celebration of human storytelling (through films, books, games, and myths) and a humorously self-deprecating look at his all-consuming enthusiasm for make-believe.

In this display across two galleries, Roy Ananda uses this lens to respond to the collection and annotates two significant works in the Art Gallery of South Australia’s collection - Peter Booth’s Painting 1982, a haunting work that has loomed large in the artist’s imagination since childhood, and Olafur Eliasson’s Dark Matter Collective installation.

Roy Ananda: Further Annotations coincides with the launch of his 2021 SALA Publication, as well as a solo exhibition titled Supreme Library at Adelaide Central Gallery.