APPROACHING THE IN-BETWEEN | Nancy Cogswell & Laurence Noga

About

The work of Nancy Cogswell and Laurence Noga shares a preoccupation with the in-between. This is not only reflected in the process, but also through emotive and contained feeling for space. This space is explored using colour as a structuring form, activating sensation and emotional specificity. That experience for Cogswell is developed by pressing into the paint surface, withdrawing the body of colour and leaving luminous transparency, focusing our attention on the tonal structure of the paintings for emotional content. The phenomenology is activated through the close up, drawing us into the physical space that has an illusion of velvet like depth. This depth has a weightlessness, contained by a domestic architectural sense of form. Noga's work offers another interpretation of the in-between, using a dialogue between in control or out of control, keeping faith in materiality. Poured enamel touches matt rolled acrylic. The eye moves across the divisions of colour, exploiting the visual problem of focusing simultaneously on converging tonally dazzling colour, whilst elongating and compressing the composition, allowing intuitive events to collide in a frontal approach. These artists' sensitivity for essence is clearly an important alignment. An investigation into ambiguity of presence and absence is a key motivation. Divisions of colour, void spaces made real, all set up a conversation. The physicality of a painted space that can envelop, bend, or push right towards the viewer is a deliberate and conceptual strategy. Approaching the In-Between will be shown across two locations. The more conventional gallery space at number 11 Princelet Street will, on this occasion, be accompanied by the more domestic setting at number 24 Princelet Street. This will not only serve to emphasise the notion of duality that is at the heart of the exhibition but also creates a unique viewing experience as visitors journey between the two sites allowing space for contemplation on this fascinating body of work. Exhibition catalogue available to coincide with ‘Approaching the In-between' featuring a critical essay by renowned writer Peter Ashton Jones, co-editor of Turps Banana. 2011