The Apparitionist
Roy Ananda
September 2025
The Apparitionist comprises new collage works by Roy Ananda and continues the artist’s on-going examination of the weird and the eerie. The core mechanic of this body of work is the arrangement of apparently ‘rational’ or ‘qualitative’ imagery (in the form of infographics, diagrams, schematics, and the like) according to esoteric and occult organising principles. This generative studio strategy has proved to be surprisingly fruitful, resulting in the three hundred collages that make up the exhibition. As with much of Ananda’s recent work, the aesthetics and atmospheres of the amorphous field of hauntology permeate the exhibition. In addition to their visual allusions to the paranormal, each work is individually titled, with the majority deriving their titles from various examples of hauntological content, spanning literature, music, and film. These attributions are recorded on index cards which, taken collectively, offer up a kind of provisional ‘canon’ that ties together various strands of ghostly or spectral media. The dense installation of these works and their accompanying annotations is intended to suggest an encounter with an eccentric system of thought rooted in the irrational and the arcane. Accompanying the exhibition is a newly commissioned text by Bob Fischer. Bob is the founder of The Haunted Generation, a multi-media exploration of the stranger side of the 1970s and ’80s childhood. He writes a regular column of that name for Fortean Times, as well as contributing regularly to magazines including Electronic Sound, Shindig! and the official Doctor Who Magazine. Previously, he has been a record store owner, a BBC radio presenter and a short-lived Elvis impersonator (one gig).
Read Bob Fischer’s exhibition text here >
‘The Apparitionist’
26th Sept – 19th Oct
Supported by CreateSA and Forage Supply Co.
Photo credit: Sam Roberts
