Gallery202
Residual . Transference . Metamorphosis . Condition . Body . Self
Current Online Exhibition
Residual Landscape I, II and III
Following the "fallowland" series in October 2014 where "fallow" was the theme I created these collages. The middle of each work is an old paint rag soaked with remains and residues of paint and ink. I have transferred them to abstract landscapes. Size: each 25 x 35 cm / paint and indian ink on paint rag and cardboard.
Threshed Memories, examines the relationship between mental and physical structures within a family home. Early childhood memories of innocent play in the family’s straw barn are recalled and hand written using organic straw dipped in ink and subsequently overlaid with household filler and paint. When the surface is scarified, what remains is a blurred, fragmented distortion.
In consideration of this theme, the words most pertinent to my practice are residual, transference and self. In a recent body of work, I have been combining an act of destruction with a delicate reconfiguring of the material qualities of the objects that I have been working with; the act of destruction referring to the crushing of charcoal in order to use the smaller fragments to delicately cover the surface of three wooden stools. The crushing of charcoal led to a collection of drawings, while these drawings may be seen as a consequential body of work, the intricate marks lend themselves to the idea of something residual. They are indexical traces of a creative process, but in fact not only respond to the question of how artists “press beyond the boundaries of the tangible”* but their collective pattern alludes to a constellation and upon reflection forcing the viewer to look heavenward.
*McGrath, A. (2004). The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. Third Edition, 2005. London, United Kingdom. Random House Group Limited.
Effort, We Cried! Parts One and Two, Graphite on paper, 2015
After years of exploring aspects of cultural femininity in my work, last year I was forced by a joint condition to enter the hyper-masculine world of weightlifting. Left alone, my body is too bendy, too pliant, too willing to alter itself to its surroundings. Too feminine.
In the clanging, grunting atmosphere of the bodybuilding gym, footage from the documentary Pumping Iron played on a TV. Arnold Schwarzenegger, gurning with effort in 1975, moving mountains of weight with his hands. Mr Olympia is not pliant, he does not bend to his surroundings, he forces that which is around him to change. "Effort!" we cried, and returned to training.
The Shrine of Optimism…. Self Portrait
The piece is an experimental sculptural assemblage, responding to each element of the brief.
The sculpture is surreal, yet poetic, riffing upon Momento Mori with a sober veneer of celebration of a life lived and remembered.
An immersive representation of the void of belief beyond the clouds, refers to an absent sculptural evocation of unseen form.
The remains of life, transformed to ashes, silently rest ,finally.
The outline of the emptiness describes a wine bottle, the blood of Christ, the circle plinth ...the body.
A sparing guild upon the chess piece adds richness and evokes both classical reference and a dark observation, referring to life simply as a Game.
Life Goes On… the human condition replays and transforms.
Jill Hedges
Gelatine is a melange of many different animals whose indistinguishable identities provide the material I work with. The residue of their remains; which are chopped, boiled, bleached, dried and powdered, still contains DNA evidence of their species. Their condition altered, they metamorphose into a different form during every stage of the process.
Mark Lawn
4th floor Tokyo, hydrolate
We are invisible to the unknown. No matter how prepared we are there is a relationship of distilling the vagueness of the articulate. Many work or start with a detox of images; rotting, decomposing, post industrial, on the borderline of negative to neutral. Some deal with a spacial awareness that deciphers energetics to a lesser symmetrical molecule, or the balanced vague retracement to that of esoteric angelic quality, with a glimpse of foresight or expansion and ascension.
To allow the image to be observed and feel free after being seen, and enlighten oneself and the hidden collective. Visualising, re-occurring, visiting and being away from comfort zones and identities that have symbolic, language and spacial patterns, that are fresh to the observer. Cleansed. The relationship between the readily available material of a camera becomes magical, multi dimensional and induces a subtle worsening into magic.
Martin Baldock
brother
Residing within my heart and mind and soul
Transfer your love, good will and best wishes
Complete your metamorphosis into a thought, a memory
This condition we call human, this body, this self
Fragile, impermanent, transitory, fleeting
A series of images, pass by our consciousness
A series of notes and sounds reverberate
While we have a body to contain all this
We have a self, and then that dissipates into the shadows of others’ thoughts
Jenny Wylie
body parts
Considering the continual internal workings
transforming
unseen yet audible
automatic
invisible
processing
pulsing
mechanically
lubricating
ventilating
Doing the job
The Only Way Out Is Through #4 (Triptych), Giclee Print, 2014
A series of ongoing works depicting a journey through life and its struggles, changes and obstacles.
The hand leaves the pod and climbs the rope to leave the environment, while the environment attempts to prevent the escape. This stage of the work represents my own attempt to escape the limitations of my working class background to force a change or metamorphosis of the self into what the heart desires. The work is hand made in ceramic and used as installation to produce the images.
Self, Identity and the Body is the heart of my work, knowledge of my personal experiences becomes public. Evolved from prints and drawings this structure is a statement seeking to create certain environments for audiences. Emotive language evoking both mental and physical emotions, those of Claustrophobia, confinement, panic, fear, anxiety, phobias, consciousness, to provoke, be in the way, somewhere you cannot escape. The linear aesthetics seek to represent a journey, process, memory and time where chance and serendipity transform trauma into something beautiful. Organic materials reflect ideas of the human body, the skin being the external and the internal being ribs and lungs, the catalyst being the core and brain where all the emotive origins are. An armature to an extent holding personal belonging, a metaphor for myself distinguishing an idea to create an awareness to the public of mental illness, providing an understanding of peoples everyday struggles with it.
Dovile Jokuliene
Performative Drawings, Reach
These action drawings express movement, tension and energy of my body. The energetic actions physically tested my body. The idea to reach up can be read as a metaphor for having to stretch ourselves. Performative actions created the residual marks with disordered simplicity that intricate and insinuate of what we do with ourselves in a real life. These visual performative drawings remain that simplicity of life is just being ourselves.
Tears… In… Rain…
I am a graduate student of the University of Northampton. The focus of my art is the place that people occupy within the human structures of society. How people relate to the man made landscape and the role that the photograph performs within a modern connected virtual space.
The face, and the facade fascinate me. The apparent veracity of the photograph set against the face we present as an illusion, and a mask. The exploration of the blurring of boundaries between perception and the real. Within my work as both a documenter of the new reality of photography, and the mask that conceals is the place that my art occupies.
The portrait is nothing more than a performance. It is my role to unmask that representation as a facade.
“The photograph thus becoming itself the mask concealing, thwarting confrontation with the real.”
Susan Hall
Moment - charcoal drawing on cartridge paper 53x70cm,
An abstract, image of an unclassified, seed-like shape. Representational of concept; the pod-type cocoon is the essence of a new life-form, yet unimagined.
Perception - charcoal drawing on cartridge paper 53x70cm,
An abstract drawing of an undefined biological structure. Charcoal is applied and removed in sweeping arcs to fashion a unique unidentifiable form.
Fervour - charcoal on cartridge paper 100x140cm,
An abstract expressive charcoal drawing of a feathery, heart-like shape. Rapidly applied and removed marks are concurrent to the driving force behind life. The image of a heart represents sentiment and purpose while feathers are symbolic of ascension to higher dimensions.