Top image: © Michael Craig-Martin, 2015

Renowned British artist Michael Craig-Martin is holding his first London solo show in 25 years at Serpentine Gallery. Opening this week, the major exhibition showcases works ranging from 1981 all the way through to today.

Transitory objects are the constant in Martin’s paintings – hence the apt exhibition name, Transience. Entities belonging to analogue and digital technologies, which have dominated the latter and former parts of the 20th and 21st centuries, respectively, become Martin’s subjects. It’s an exploration between form and functionality – the boundaries that divide the two – and a conceptual awareness of the influence these technical advancements have had on human habits, behaviour and popular culture.

It is a little dark: his images are strangely haunting. Whether that’s their solitary composition (the sad and revealing nature of his concept) or Martin’s use of contrasting and often deep colours, it doesn’t really matter. It gets you thinking.

Typifying the exhibition is Martin’s incandescent bulb, Lightbulb (magenta), which was made especially for the Serpentine’s exhibition. It’s one invention that has been superseded by more efficient technologies since its inception, continuing to highlight a universal ephemerality.

Digital representations of this piece have been interpreted digitally for the exhibition, online. One of his drawings have been used; it’s a six-colour adaptation controlled by software algorithms enabling users to choose their own colour scheme: a modernised version of traditional audience-participation.

Think of it as a 21st-century style of Pop Art (like, Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans), but darker.

Transience by Michael Craig-Martin runs until 14th February at Serpentine Galleries, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA