Merlin Summers: The Chase

Whoosh! Crash! Bamm! An eight-wheeler house speeding down the motorway of a mountainous landscape, hurling towards a narrow tunnel. A giant winged bus flying overhead, threatening to crash down on the unsuspecting citizens of a built-up cityscape.

Merlin’s inventions and narratives owe as much to the eccentric machines of British cartoonist Heath Robinson as to the dynamic storytelling of manga. His work concerns introducing the extraordinary into the everyday and subverting traditional settings to create the surreal.

Merlin’s practice is multi-disciplinary and experiential, driven by an unstoppable urge to construct and make, he creates kinetic contraptions using anything and everything that comes his way, from driftwood to coffee cups and found objects.