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In Entropic Entrapment, Jon Ching's surreal depictions of nature reflect the chaos of contemporary society.

This exhibition will run from April 27th to May 18th and will coincide with Beau White's All Clowns Are Broken, Vorja Sánchez's Organic Harmony and Selene Mauri Cochrane's VERTU.

A significant theme within Entropic Entrapment is the impact of AI on modern life, with Ching engaging in the ongoing conversation about its role in art. While Ching acknowledges the moral and ethical concerns surrounding AI art—such as unethical data collection, the devaluation of creative effort, and the production of soulless work—he rejects avoidance or dismissal of AI. Instead, he approaches these new tools with a curious neutrality, open to exploring their potential and recognising AI's inevitable integration into everyday life.

Some works critique AI and technology's grip on humanity, examining how they reshape human priorities and values and ensnare us in digital addictions. In others, Ching explored AI as a tool, using it to generate first drafts, or in one case as reference material, or working backward, attempting to mimic its processes to better understand its outputs.  As Ching explained, "I experimented with it as a tool and found it helpful in some cases and frustrating in others. Honestly, I found Midjourney to be more clunky than I had imagined, struggling to get it to show me what I was thinking of.  It was a useful first draft and an interesting experiment in how to incorporate it in my process."

AI is just one force disrupting the zeitgeist, and Entropic Entrapment also explores broader themes of disorder and chaos, particularly in politics. Ching sees entropy as an ever-expanding state of disorder in which humanity is trapped, likening it to a Pandora's box of cascading consequences. As in much of his work, he seeks to transform challenging themes into something beautiful, using nature as both a counterbalance and a lens through which to process this turbulent human experience.