AN OGEE
an exhibition curated by Yves Blais
Acquire Arts, 55 Battersea Park Road, London, SW8 4BU
Tel: 020 7228 2629. http://www.acquirearts.org/
19 July – 23 July 2009. Preview Saturday 18 July, 6-9pm
Open Sunday 12pm – 6pm, Monday – Wednesday 10am – 6pm, or by appointment
Charlotte Austen
Paul Chisholm
Phoebe Collings-James
Melissa Hobbs
Sophie Layton
Willow Mitchell
In this age of information, where all too much importance is placed on the instantaneous of concept over craft, and idea over execution, AN OGEE is an exhibition that seeks to refocus on a process-driven exploration of traditional aesthetics. With broad themes of mortality, physical form and the relationship between the body and the mind, the exhibition features artists committed to the learned mastery of their field, and the expertise that comes with an obsessive attention to detail in repetitive methodology. While their materials and results vary from the profane to the mundane, the abstract and the acute, the underpinning of these broad themes is an unwavering commitment to the processes that inform and imbue the final results with perceived meanings.
While the ogee is a scientifically conceived mathematical form, it is only with humanistic interpretation that the viewer appreciates its greater significance. To this end, it is only upon viewing the end results collated for this exhibition that the onlooker can begin to explore their relationship to the empirical processes from which they are conceived.
Charlotte Austen works from organic materials to discovering order and disorder in the forms of nature. An artist fascinated with natural processes, Austen re-imagines natural materials as tools of her artistic craft, and in so doing sheds light on perhaps undiscovered angles of natural beauty.
Paul Chisholm has an obsession with dust that has seen him travel the globe in amassing over 500 samples from sites of historical, natural and personal interest. The resulting monotone art using these samples sheds new light on the natural processes that, in essence, reduce us all to this most vital of natural materials.
Phoebe Collings-James finds interest with the way in which modern society disassociates the body from the person. Using repeated, process-driven techniques, she emphasises the distance between our physical form and our detached mind.
Melissa Hobbs encompasses site-specific installation, video and sculpture in art that concentrates on the exploring the notion of the body as a vessel to the mind. A proponent of instinctual creativity, she strives for material purity to convey the limits of language in expressing emotion.
Sophie Layton creates monoprints that invoke ‘The Presence of Absence’. In exploring the different effects that can be achieved through tiny alterations to the same techniques, she uses windows of light to muster intrigue at the subtle emotions her results can awaken.
Willow Mitchell combines pencil and lithographic processes to assemble fragments of observed phenomena with imaginary and abstracted form. Through ‘repetitive and intuitive’ processes, Mitchell creates spaces for chance encounter to occur, arousing a state of simple poetic consciousness for the viewer.
For more information on the artists, their artwork and the exhibition AN OGEE, please contact Yves Blais at yves_blais@hotmail.com or on 07939 483 952.
Text by Hazel Sheffield
The strange and complex relationships of four lonely women trapped together, grow and entangle until an explosion of violence seems inevitable. Based on the true story of the Papin Sisters, which also inspired Jean Genet's 'The Maids', this play explores the desperation of unfulfilled hopes and the cruelty, jealousy and manipulation, which can manifest from love.
Madame Danzard played by Robyn Moore
