Produced by Lisa Denyer and Michael Thorp
Venue: Unit 4C Piccadilly Place, Manchester
Preview: Thursday 17 July, 6–9pm
Exhibition continues: Thursday 17 July – Sunday 20 July, 1–6pm
Contact: societyofislanduniverses@gmail.com
Through the incorporation of photographic elements, installation, sculptural assemblages, projection and painting, Society of Island Universes explores the ideology behind abstraction. The exhibition brings together practices which demonstrate a strong interest in materiality, each piece of work provoking the viewer to examine and consider their immediate environment.
The title of the exhibition is taken from Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, making the link between ways of seeing, intuition, and the discovery of new possibilities. We each have specific areas of interest in our interpretation of the world - but can we ever successfully communicate their importance?
Abstraction utilizes processes that can involve highlighting or obscuring. This visual language is ambiguous and open to interpretation, meaning that the resultant work becomes imbued with a multitude of ideas and points of recognition.
Within this exhibition, compositional elements which are not normally given much thought, such as the stretcher of a canvas, or a mark on the surface of a wall, are taken into account. Work is manipulated to expand into the architecture of the space, evidencing elements of the making process. Through responding to site and testing curatorial ideas, dialogues are initiated around flux and fundamental form.
All materials and their implications are considered through complex juxtaposition and comparison. Taking structure and solidity as a starting point, found objects, visuals, textures, colours and varied processes are brought together as mechanisms to represent the nature of transience. Construction and deconstruction take place until a balance is finally struck between what is painstakingly nurtured and what is left to chance.
