On show two artists sharing an interest in the performative site. The works explore ideas around the sculptural object within the realm of a theatrical landscape, the active and inert, and theatre as both an architectural space and encounter.
Laura Bartlett Gallery is pleased to announce a two-person exhibition with Sophie Macpherson and Yael Davids – two artists sharing an interest in the performative site. The works explore ideas around the sculptural object within the realm of a theatrical landscape, the active and inert, and theatre as both an architectural space and encounter.
Sophie Macphersons’ works are located at the juncture between stillness and motion, her forms allude to a potential or impending event or something one might have just missed.
Her sculptures, drawings and photographs presented together suggest interrelated narratives perhaps autobiographical or imaginative concepts. For this exhibition, Macpherson will present new work: A gloss-white partition divides the gallery space creating a corner, a temporary other space; a pair of black and white photographs record the impromptu action of a poised and shoe-ed foot before a screen; a sculptural relief in wood of a ruff or fan, titled Dancers, painted white, hints at an expressive theatrical turn while a mute cool concrete sculpture continues this pleated and classical motif, an inversion as a form found again in the drawing The Mountain Pleater, 2008.
Macphersons’ components imply the space and visual language of the stage. They have an unpolished aesthetic that allows the forms an element of the chancy - her objects although grouped to provoke a viewing in terms of spatial relationships, remain displaced, existing as prompts or cues. The Ladies Utopian Band, 2008 is a drawing that resembles a prototype for a poster. Macpherson’s work simultaneously presents the optimism that precedes a theatrical moment and the faded glamour of the redundant or aspiring. ‘The work exists for a moment. Afterwards, what is left is a void, an absence, an object that ‘has been’’ Yael Davids
Opening: Thursday June 12th, 6-8pm
Laura Bartlett Gallery
10 Northington Street - London
Open: Wednesday - Saturday, 11 am - 6m
Free admission