The exhibition, which includes Blakeley’s paintings, painted sculptural sun loungers and cool box planters containing cacti and crystals, was inspired by ⁣the 1995 Microsoft advertising campaign, ‘Where do you want to go today?’

Described by The New York Times as “a winsome, humanistic approach to demystifying technology”, the tag-line for this campaign formed the starting point for Blakeley’s current exhibition in which the artist explores how virtual realms offered us opportunity to escape the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Against the clinical, white gallery walls, the artist’s installations forge an artificial recreation of scenes from vacation advertisements and travel sites, inviting visitors enclosed within the confines of the gallery – survivors of quarantine – to imagine an opulent and artificial dimension. Distant, unattainable, and free.

Until 4 September, 2022

Southwark Park Galleries, 1 Park Approach, Southwark Park, London SE16 2UA⁣