AMSTERDAM.- Galerie Gabriel Rolt announces the first solo presentation of Thomas van Linge with the gallery. The exhibition's title 'This isn't even my final form' references the evolving nature of the artists' work, the Internet and his thoughtful but tongue-in-cheek approach to his practice in equal measure.

"There is something quietly discomforting about the new work of Thomas van Linge. In an odd sense it has a whiff of walking into a car dealership. The sleek brushed materials, high attention to detail and the slight cockiness of the sales staff all blend in such a way that one might be tricked into forgetting that all this ultra modernity comes at a price. Van Linge in his practice deploys similar tactics. At first glance, the cool detached appearance of the work makes you forget that behind the bold but refined exterior of the work lies a lush poetic world laden with academic references. Once you cross the threshold and navigate your way past the aluminium, mirrored stainless steel and acetate, the work opens up and grants you entry to a more poetic and philosophical access point. Here we enter a place that throws up a conundrum of references, where online and offline attributes merge until the artificial and the real are firmly entwined.

In the practice of Van Linge, nature is never left to its own devices but becomes absorbed in a world that creates room for an improved artificial reproducible version of itself. One that the artist assumes power over. A place where the possibility of the imprint of the imprint is endless, stretched so far that the image becomes an abstraction of itself. The work deftly touches on complex new found theories such as Circulationism as well as older ones, like Deleuze's ideas on assemblages or Walter Benjamin's thoughts on mechanical reproduction. Serially produced objects, salvaged from the modern day waste bin that is the Internet, are reclaimed and presented by Van Linge as signposts of contemporary life, reflecting on their prior existence and throwing up a mirror to the society they once inhabited. Ultimately, the artist presents a world where no state cannot be altered or controlled. He creates a place where societies' waste holds the potential to reach the socially elevated status of being art and precious materials are reduced to be subservient carriers of grander ideas.

In 'This is not even my final form' Van Linge teases his audience, in a similar way to which he manipulates his materials. His assemblages are just as much monuments to modernity as they are playful warning signs, in which, nature, automation and representation are mutually exclusive to shine a light on the disjointed nature of society itself."

---Steven van Grinsven, 2015