By Tabish Khan, art critic specialising in London’s art scene and he believes passionately in making art accessible to everyone. He visits and writes about hundreds of exhibitions a year covering everything from the major blockbusters to the emerging art scene. Tabish has been visual arts editor for Londonist since 2013. Contributions include reviews, previews, news, experiences and opinion pieces. He is also a regular contributor for FAD with a weekly top exhibitions to see, reviews and a column called ‘What’s wrong with art’. He also regularly reviews for Culture Whisper. Tabish is a trustee of ArtCan, a non-profit arts organisation that supports artists through profile raising activities and exhibitions. He is also a trustee of the prestigious City & Guilds London Art School and Discerning Eye, which hosts an annual exhibition featuring hundreds of works.
The power of art is that it can transport us to other worlds, a world created by the artist that resembles our own world in some ways but is uniquely the artist’s in others. That’s what we get in Diana Meridi’s Video Art, where she challenges the nature of memory, perception and consciousness.
Compelling visuals and a lulling soundscape guide us around her world, and we are explorers discovering her realm as it transforms and evolves around us. Could we live in this world? Are we alien intruders? What is left to find in this dimension? The everyday meets the mystical in these surreal landscapes, and I want to know more about them. It’s a digital world, but unlike the attention-grabbing world of social media, we’re used to, this world is more meditative and embraces us gently.
A recurring motif of an eye appears in her Video Art, but it’s not an eye of surveillance watching us in case we break some unwritten rule. It’s a watchful eye that seems nurturing, parentally watching over us as we explore a new world, ready to put us back on the path if we fall off it.
‘Whispers of the City’ feels darker as we’re guided through an urban environment where the people are mere shadows of themselves. Are they ghosts of previous inhabitants, or can we not perceive them because we are not of their world? There’s an intriguing mystery here that remains out of reach.
The eye and shadows appear in ‘Dreamscape Echoes,’ but here, they feel more welcoming as we move among the swaying figures, as if we’re part of their process of transcending into another realm, just as many cultures have used movement and dance to reach a heightened spiritual state.
While many contemporary digital artists lean towards overt commentary, Meridi uses the medium to forge intimate, almost haptic connections with the viewer’s subconscious, subtly subverting expectations of digital art as a purely external or surface-level experience.
Diana Meridi’s Video Art is a spiritual and psychological portal. Her art doesn’t just ask us to look, but to see. Welcome to her world and enjoy the bliss of the surreal sights and fantastic characters.
