Closer, by Simon Linington

About

This body of work sees Linington situate his body against the architecture of a site ' that of his studio ' in order to measure it against the space in various ways. The resulting works are an imprint of his time spent and efforts made, providing a negative of the artist's body on the space, and that of both upon the viewer.
In a large-scale drawing the artist writes his name ' Simon ' over and over again, until the word is indecipherable, and the result - a remnant of the activity - is a measurement of the passage of time through materiality and medium. This, and other gestural exercises realized in a variety of media, embraces the recognition of the 'medium' of time as a dematerialized companion to language, philosophy and the image of the artist's own body.

A series of sculptures in which Linington has pushed, kneaded and forced lumps of clay in to the eight corners of his studio again engages the viewer in the specificity of the artist's own workplace. An enormous etching plate, which bears the marks of 'time spent' will be presented alongside the drawings and sculptures; the marks made by Linington's time spent moving around on it whilst it was on the floor of his studio -thinking, sitting, walking across, lying down on, killing time.

Linington sets himself physical activities that demand complete focus and concentration for extended periods of time. As the eye of the viewer scans these works we are reminded of the artist watching himself from outside of his body as he 'does', inhaling and exhaling, meditating on the task.

Alongside the objects in this show is a video documentation of the artist pursuing a mouse as it runs across his studio floor. As Linington moves closer, the mouse comes in and out of the frame; at times becoming frightened, it changes course and flees. In this, and the other works in the show, we are reminded of the possibility of becoming closer to something, at the same time finding ourselves further away from something else.