Recovery Mode explores the intersection of inward compulsion and outward expectation to continuously produce and perform. Expanding on Meakins’ ongoing examination of exertion, exhaustion, and the amplification of the human body, the work investigates physicality in the context of restless pursuit — where achievements quickly dissolve, replaced by the desire for more.

This exhibition brings together Meakins’ full breadth of practice — spanning sculpture, 3D modelling, VR-based drawing, animation, and 3D printing — to present a cohesive reflection on the body as both vessel and machine, driven by the demand to continually outdo itself. The work uses the everyday setting to explore tricks, false perceptions, and out-of-body experiences in relation to how the body absorbs, adapts, and recovers, while interrogating the effects of constant motion and endless productivity. Physical layering, pressure points, and recurring symbols are embedded, bolted, etched and fabricated into the work — introducing a tangible sense of weight, load, and support. Nothing is used once; every material is stretched, reconsidered, and repurposed, translating the cyclic nature of our ambition into physical form.

The exhibition positions the body as a system expected to keep going even when exhausted — fleetingly satisfied, always seeking, stretching until something gives way. On to the next one.

This project has been supported by the Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport, Western Australia.

Tim Meakins is an Artist and Designer based in Perth (Boorloo), Western Australia. Working across sculpture, painting, print, animation and publishing, he employs a visual grammar drawn from the history (and present) of computer graphics/operating systems and cartoons to create intensely energetic propositions around the ever-mutating forms, limits, plasticity, optical register and possibilities of digital and analogue states-of-being. Tim’s work blends graphic design with visual explorations of human connection and physicality, often pushing the boundaries of how the body is imagined, stretched, and reshaped. These creative outcomes often appear as cartoonish manifestations of strength and power; bright characters in demonstrative poses, flexing and lifting heavy objects whilst referencing an array of cultural tropes, from remixed folklore and worldbuilding to fantasy and gym culture.