'Perceptions of Time' was unable to remain open to its original advertised end date 28 June 2020 due to the Gallery closure in response to COVID-19.

‘Perceptions of Time’ brings together a selection of works from the Gallery’s Collection that explore how the idea of time can be altered by personal experiences and histories. The subjective and analytical meet throughout the exhibition in photographs, paintings and interactive and time-based works as artists address the complexity of time.

Some artists incorporate the concept as an intangible, malleable and personal element in their work. In Yuan Goang-Ming’s Disappearing Landscape – Passing II 2011, for example, the passing of time is punctuated by significant personal moments, entwining life, death, memory and emotion. In Yuki Kihara’s Siva in Motion 2012 and ‘Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?’ series 2013, the past, present and future are fluid within broader cultural and historical narratives.

Others artists, such as Spencer Finch, consider time as a more precise system of measurement. His watercolours Atlantic Ocean (morning effect) 7-14-02 2002 and Mediterranean Sea (afternoon effect) 4-2-02 2002 record the colours of the sea at a specific location, time and date.

Working between these two ideas, Daniel Crooks and George Poonkhin Khut both focus the viewer on small slices of time. Crooks’s Train No. 1 2005 highlights and then actively displaces a split-second moment in the linear timeline, while Khut’s interactive Distillery: Waveforming 2012 encourages viewers to consider the moment physically, by acknowledging and releasing each breath they take in.