Boom, Boom, Treasure Hunters (2008) is a series of oil paintings and black ink on canvas that emerged during a period of immersion in the Japanese metropolis of Nagoya, where I was living at the time. The works developed progressively, as a visual response to the curious abundance of forms—at once mundane and mysterious—that seemed to surface everywhere around me. These shapes, half-remembered or half-seen, occupied my peripheral vision and gradually took residence in my subconscious, forming a kind of urban lexicon.
In Boom, Boom, Treasure Hunters, these forms are extracted and reimagined: they float freely across the canvas, unmoored from context, yet tethered to memory and experience. Each object is linked, layered, or combined with the detritus of yesteryear—abandoned umbrellas, sunken boats, orphaned vehicles, smoke stacks, fragments of infrastructure, and faded war memorials. These are not depicted with documentary intent, but as poetic signifiers—fragments salvaged from the visual wreckage of urban life.
Set against patterned and often rhythmically repetitive backgrounds, the compositions hint at both disorder and structure. The repetition serves as a grounding mechanism, a patterned hum that holds the forms in place while allowing them to drift in and out of recognition. This interplay of floating object and structured field reflects the psychic texture of city living—where memory, movement, and visual noise coexist in constant negotiation.
The title Boom, Boom, Treasure Hunters carries multiple resonances. “Boom, Boom” evokes rhythm, impact, and play—a beat that drives the act of searching. “Treasure Hunters” implies a quest, though not for wealth in the traditional sense. Rather, it signals a desire to reclaim what has been discarded or forgotten: the overlooked, the outdated, the out-of-place. The paintings become a form of quiet archaeology—sifting through layers of form and meaning to construct a new whole from what remains.
These works serve as keepers of memory. Each image is an offering, a salvaged token from the landscape of modernity. Through the act of collecting, reframing, and composing, Boom, Boom, Treasure Hunters reassembles fragments into a visual syntax—a vocabulary of lost things given renewed presence. The result is not nostalgic, but reflective: a new whole pieced together from the beautiful wreckage of the everyday.
morgan veness 