Frayed Vectors – Jason Kerley

In Frayed Vectors ubiquitous, corporate illustrations are set free, cut from paper instead of pixels.

Frayed Vectors comprises a collection of miniature shrines and towers built from decrepit UI elements and decaying app iconography. Cut from paper instead of pixels, the ubiquitous, uniformly diverse characters of corporate illustration are peeled from the screen. These tech-company Pinocchios find liberation from their utility in a new world built from card and sand.

The population of the exhibition writhe with excitement and horror as their already disproportionate limbs further distort, betraying the comfort of homogeneity with a new existence.

In this new exhibition, motion designer and artist Jason Kerley uses his background in illustration to make paper dioramas of the contemporary clip-art of start-ups. Using the characters of so-called flat illustration, he tips their awkward balancing act between a utilitarian commitment to capitalism, and veneer of inoffensive approachability into something altogether more uncomfortable.

Please Note: the paper elements in the exhibition are not cut by hand. The sculptures still took a bloody long time to make, but I (Jason) want to be transparent about the fact they are machine-cut as I appreciate that labour like that is important to how some people will appreciate the work.

Kerley describes the exhibition as ‘a collection of paper sculptures, stuck in sand on cardboard boxes. The paper pieces are derived from stock illustration and iconography, but are re-drawn to exaggerate and mutate their forms.’

There will be supplementary zines which expand on the whats, whys and hows of Frayed Vectors, in addition to this there will also be the number to a burner phone to contact the artist directly.

Thanks to Lisette May Monroe and Daniel Curtis for their invaluable input for this copy.

Jason Kerley is a freelance designer based in Glasgow. His work encompasses illustration and animation (and the things that fall in between). Follow him on Instagram here.