6/2/2002
Sub_plot
Mafuji Gallery, London
Sub_plot brings together 6 artists under the umbrella of suspended narrative, both theatrical and subtle. The artists present work, including paintings, photographs, text and sculpture, that lends itself to storytelling but doesn't give the whole picture, only the detail between sentences. Telling stories, which are unsettling or incomplete, sub_plot aims to create a diverse exhibition, spinning fine threads of connection between the artists.
Curated by Zoë Mendelson and Anne Hardy
Sub_plot brings together 6 artists under the umbrella of suspended narrative, both theatrical and subtle. All recent graduates of the Royal College of Art, they have shown solo in places such as Zwemmer (Harris) and The Tardis (Mendelson). Group shows have included the collaborative Assembly at Stepney City in 2000, The Whitechapel Open (Hardy), The Horse Hospital (Atherton) and 'Together Again' at the Pumphouse gallery (Fisher). Peggy Atherton is curator at Tablet gallery.
The artists present work, including paintings, photographs, text and sculpture, that lends itself to storytelling but doesn't give the whole picture, only the detail between sentences. Telling stories, which are unsettling or incomplete, sub_plot aims to create a diverse exhibition, spinning fine threads of connection between the artists.
Fictionalising their ideas surrounding subjects such as mortality, biography, sexuality and narrative itself, the artists are not interested in one-liners but in creating multi-layered work requiring a long look, and engaging an audience prepared to use its imagination and humour to draw on what it sees.
For further information, slides or CVs, contact Zoë Mendelson or Anne Hardy on 07956576237 / 07957318 509 or by e-mail
Peggy Atherton collects road kill animals, casting them with flowers in elaborate Disney-esque graves, as undamaged and perfect. Her monuments refer to wildlife and its decorative representation within the domestic space, whilst identifying a further dimension regarding death and its attendant rituals. Atherton allows her animals immortality as ornamental altarpieces to an unrequited pastoral idyll, creating a tension between domesticity and nature, what is familiar and what is mysterious.
Catherine Fisher re-presents selective character studies using magazines or other peoples' personal photo albums. Her editing fictionalises these biographies and personal histories, setting up an absent intimacy, which remains forever unresolved. In recent work, using The Lady magazine as a springboard, Fisher seeks out evidence of colliding histories, presenting combinations or contradictions that are rooted in the particular but somehow speak of an invisible movement on a grander scale.
Roderick Harris draws on a range of sourced imagery related to perceived themes of escape. Cinemas, hotels, forests, discotheques and starry skies all feature as the skeleton for a body of paintings that play out a variety of existentially led momentary dramas. Potentially sobering plays of extended metaphor lie within a madcap and derisory humour acting as a perpetually disarming counterpoint. At times embedded quietly, at others overblown and comically explicit, these themes are explored within a shifting language part expressionist, part pop, part self-described 'fag ash bedroom surrealism'. Harris symbolically squeezes the world through a series of fugitive fictionalising filters.
Anne Hardy's large scale photographs present normal people in everyday locations. Observed from a distance within these public spaces, they appear to be engaged in incidental moments, often private or tense in nature. The scenes appear as singular as they do commonplace, often drawing attention to that which may otherwise slip by unnoticed. These images create fictions, but also allude to the reality of an existence that is everyday but often hidden or peripheral. The viewer's participation whilst going some way to completing these fables, can no more resolve them than they are suspended in the moment.
Zoë Mendelson focuses on elaborate fantasy construction and the ingestion of fiction for women, whilst shrouding the stories she creates in the artifices of politeness and charm. At first glance her paintings may seem 'tasteful' or decorative, with echoes of Victoriana. However, the imagery soon exposes itself as being subtly soiled and with closer inspection seems to be hiding a rather more disturbing and sexual content. For this exhibition, Mendelson presents a series of cabinets opening up to reveal images of women ingesting or expelling flowers and ornate furniture, bringing into question the borders of fantasy and the body.
Artist, Mike Ricketts joins the group as a 'writer-in-residence', providing a related text. His essay forms a part of the exhibition as a whole.
Thurs-Sat 1-5
Tel/Fax 020 8567 8222
mafuji gallery
28 shacklewell lane, london E8
near dalston kingsland station or buses 67, 76, 149, 243, 30, 56, 236