Parker Cheeto, White Cube Mason's Yard

With Gilbert & George stealing the show in Bermondsey, want to know what is on at the White Cube Mason’s Yard? Internet artist Parker Cheeto’s Insid the White Cube certainly goes beyond the conventions of an exhibition

Whatever your feelings about internet art or internet artists, we think you’ll find it hard to find Parker Cheeto uninteresting. Parker Cheeto, alter-ego of Parker Ito, the 26 year old, Los Angeles-based artist, or self-described YIBA (young internet-based artist) has already received wide success in the art world for his paintings and exhibition projects. This month White Cube Mason’s Yard will be hosting his first show in the UK. The exhibition, comprising paintings, sculpture and video will tour multiple venues in a year-long show. 

The exhibition

Parker Ito preys on the online zeitgeist. The work on display here encapsulates the idea of self and one’s online personality and indeed, multiple personalities. It is a singular endeavour but also includes the work of communities (such as fellow collaborators, friends, strangers). 

Breaking the mould

The exhibition spills beyond the conventions of the archetypical ‘white cube’ gallery, blurring the virtual and online, the person and the private. In the gallery, hanging from chains are large paintings constructed using cartoon characters, text and hyper-real images on both sides of the canvas and the frames – it’s raw, bursting with colour and pumped full of a visceral, addictive energy. Covering the walls from floor to ceiling are vinyl supporting collaged photographs of Ito, which have been posted onto Instagram. Each image overlaid with scribbles, or tag-lines tracing the period of collaboration in the studio. Placed around the gallery, including the reception desk, are hand-painted vases containing the artist’s trademark rainbow-coloured roses. Whilst the front of house staff wear bespoke slippers, effectively becoming part of the installation.

Critical view

There are so many elements to the exhibition and the overall effect is at once mind-boggling – cool yet quirky, geeky yet sophisticated – questioning our notions about reality. Whatever you make of it, you’ll find it impossible not to be drawn into Ito’s strangely alluring three dimension visual network.