Right now It’s three for the price of one at Tokyo’s Nanzuka gallery as Polish artist Agnieszka Brzeżańska brings together photography, panel painting and glass painting in her latest series, called Kobayashi Maru. The desperately sad among you will know that the title is taken from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (which is indisputably the best of the Star Trek films). There’s a point to this nerdy reference; in the film the Starfleet Academy cadets are put through their paces in a “no-win situation” simulation of the same name. No matter what the participants do, they will end up failing, and the point of the exercise is to test how they will react in the face of inevitable defeat, and whether they are made of the right stuff.

Brzeżańska’s hopeless situations form the photographic backdrops to her multi-media works. Man-made disasters in the shape of out-of-control landfill sites, nuclear explosions and war-zones are overlaid with painted scenes from an imaginary space, which are in turn augmented with abstract shapes. Head over at warp speed before the exhibition finishes on stardate 3 May.

@NANZUKAUNG

SOVEREIGN AVATAR
2014
Acrylic paint on MDF Board, metal leaf,
inkjet print on archival paper
56.5 x 41.5 cm
unique

NO MAGIC JUST MIRACLES
2014
Acrylic paint on MDF Board, metal leaf,
inkjet print on archival paper
56.5 x 41.5 cm
unique

DREAMTIME DEFENDERS
2014
Acrylic paint on MDF Board, metal leaf,
inkjet print on archival paper
56.5 x 41.5 cm
unique

COLLAPSED TIMELINES
2014
Acrylic paint on MDF Board, metal leaf,
inkjet print on archival paper
56.5 x 41.5 cm
unique

FIRST SPARK
2014
Acrylic paint on MDF Board, metal leaf,
inkjet print on archival paper
56.5 x 41.5 cm
unique