Detritus
Alice Morey, Yulia Iosilzon, Benjamin Deakin, Mimi Nicholson, Katia Kesic, Jess Power
30 November - 14 December 2019
Painters can, if they are willing, resist this urge to organise matter into paranoid wholeness. Painting is able to find meaning in fragments. Often drawing on aesthetic, historical or ideological theories, the artists in Detritus present objects that relate to each other poetically rather than directly. 2D and 3D objects are presented alongside each other, not as separate disciplines, but concurrently. Each artist crosses disciplines, from ceramics, to film, sculpture to installation. Detritus encourages a breaking away from discipline and order, it encourages clutter, confusion and spontaneity.
The space too has been designed to perplex rather than simplify. The work is shown in abandoned public houses made to mirror fashionable rooftop bars in luxury accommodation; artificial grass and artificial light provide a veneer of artificial nature to relax the viewer. However the content of the show and the history of the architecture resist this comfort.
The basement space bears the marks of its previous use as a beer cellar, the nightclub bar is full of curios, mythical creatures and throwbacks from a decedent past. Detritus resists the urge to tidy, rationalise or prioritise.The art work is also surrounded by non-art objects, readymades from the precarious lives of the artists, bought in from old homes, studios and relationships to place. Many artists in this show live, or have lived, in temporary accommodation, they work temporary jobs and have little hold on the future.
Detritus refuses to lift the work from the subterranean litter in which it was made.
Charlie Hawksfield, Curator.
Curated by Charles Hawksfield and Sonja Teszler of the Wells Projects Team