Nicholas Mangan applies a documentary approach to reflect on the interconnected histories of colonialism, ecological disaster and consumer culture, addressing these issues through a multi-disciplinary practice.

For Brilliant Errors, Mangan presents a new series of photographs and collages stemming from his ambitious recent installation work, Ancients Lights* . These works dramatically exemplify his artistic process to excavate imagery and unearth connections.

Ancient Lights explores the suns’ potential, and it’s power to disrupt human actions. There is a surprising poetry and richness in the imagery that comprises both sourced and filmed material from multiple sources; NASA data, currency fluctuations, human sacrifice, mythology and the solar cycle itself. From the patterns of hieroglyphic markings and Tree Ring notations to the bright glow of the molten salt heat storage and the meditative scenes of the concentric mirrors of the Germasolar Thermosolar Plant in Southern Spain, a dramatic and considered aesthetic prevails.

Mangan’s new collages are assembled on cork boards which act as the site of investigation into the relationship between energy and social transformation, where a montage of found imagery and his own photographs are juxtaposed under the foreboding and smoldering orange tinted perspex. The artists hand is featured repeatedly, caught in the frame as he photographically documents the images he has located. It is the presence of his hands clasping imagery and the push pins which are ultimately employed to position them, that illustrates the artists unrelenting desire to reveal and unravel both the physical and conceptual power of the sun and it’s consequential affects on culture, technology, and economy.