Simon Woolham detail

Isobar opened last week at the Fieldgate gallery, curated by Gaia Persico (also featured in the show,) it sees a selection of artists who use aspects of drawing in their practice.
The notion of the linear as something fleeting and constantly variable and as something elusive, indefinite and fragile is echoed in the works chosen.

The title ‘Isobar’ is a meteorological term and is a line that maps pressure across weather maps connecting at intersections where the barometric pressure is equal. Drawing, as an aspect of an artists practice has this malleable quality to realize, expand, and get carried away by images and thought processes. The artists have been chosen for their vernacular qualities found within existence and as a result pertain to a poignancy and intimate show in such a large space.
Susan Collis’ works embody this. Hardly noticeable, one looks quite strange trying to locate them (it took me at least half and hour to find all three) you are conscious of yourself and the impact that a gesture can make. Small screws are found in the wall inlayed with black diamantes reduced in scale but painstakingly labour intensive, one relishes in the joy of having found such a special object amongst a bustling opening of a group show.
One would also miss Finlay Taylor’s small flying insect hanging from the wall unless you undertook a mission to find it on the floor plan. Jools Johnson’s amazing sculptures ‘God lives in the Detail II & III’ are recycled from old computer parts. They are evocative of a sense of iconic exploration, traveling or architecture we rarely connect with in an information laid environment. The transformation from computer part to sculpture is indistinguishable besides from ‘enter’ written under a small ocean liner. Mounted on the wall (a sign of their static nature) one has to peer upwards to get to the detail of which the title allures to. Persico seems to have chosen many artists for their nature of looking at things and how this may reveal potential much like the isobar qualities of drawing, which is inherent in their practice.
Embellished bananas by Tonico Lemos Auad sit ready to decay in the entrance and Kate Scrivener’s antlers demand the attention it took to re-appropriate such a naturally beautiful object.
Although Simon Woolham’s drawings held most sway, an intimate portrait of a child’s memories and how they are inextricably linked with the motifs of their landscape, are brought to fruition with his carefully assembled paper works.
Michael Robbs animation with brush techniques and Claude Heath’s projection called ‘Universe’ demarcate the intense variety of scale present in the show. Robbs’ enquiry into an art historical and canon like study of line transferred from the drawn to the animated brush stroke is stark in its minimalist and conceptual appearance, whilst Heath’s projection presents a totality everything in a small-darkened room. An animated projection of the universe reflects a mural in spidery delicate marks - only close up do you realize they mirror each other in their detail. The relationship between line and dark matter is hauntingly beautiful.