Michael Lett is pleased to present The Future, an exhibition of new work by Simon Denny. In his most recent body of work, Denny channels the spirit of ‘aeropainting’ (aeropittura)— the defining genre of later Italian Futurism—through the visual language of today’s tech, defence and aerospace industries.

The exhibition introduces two new series of machine- aided paintings. In one, modified plotters guided by an AI trained on Italian Futurist art and contemporary advertising produce synthetic, pointillist-like abstractions, some in acrylic others in gouache. In another, Denny uses a handheld labelling gun as brush, interpolating the recent marketing material of defence contractors and drone manufacturers such as Anduril, Palantir, SpaceX and Helsing, into grainy transmissions. The artist’s focus on imagery from these companies responds to their recent activity in the region, Anduril becoming a major partner with the Australian military and SpaceX providing direct-to-smartphone satellite services in New Zealand.

Recasting the aesthetics of early 20th-century modernism through the automated logic of the 21st-century, these works examine how the futurist dream of machinic speed, aerial traversal and war are being revived, a century later, in new, disorienting aesthetics of disruption.