Cut n Shunt

About

An energetic curiosity about the world of things unites the work of Craig Fisher, J.A. Nicholls and Debra Swann. Cutting it up, shunting it around and shoving it down in a different way is what they each do with a confidence that runs a road through the familiar. These works transgress referential and material boundaries with a desire at times plainly wanton and at others with the tentative steps of a torchless, night-time adventure. What drives these practices is an appetite for a different kind of sense, new associations offering the possibility of new stories. Fisher renders the accessories of tough urban life in fabric offering a new take on traditional representations of aggression and hostility. Soft and sensuous collisions of technique, of high and low culture and of pictorial and sculptural space cause slippages in meaning through which new territories can be glimpsed. Gesturing from the far side, Nicholls' faux collage paintings concern themselves with the pleasures of referentiality. These works pursue a dynamic dialogue with the remains of meaning, a range of faded visual histories, feeling what the curves and lines of familiar marks might contribute to the making of a new story. As with Fisher and Nicholls, there is an almost fetishistic fascination with the physicality of materials in Swann's delicately made and deceitful artefacts. A compulsive authorial shadow asserts its presence in the transformation of resources providing a fantastical gateway to the world of nature. Inhabiting a point of view both within and at a distance from what's agreed, the work of these three artists makes the assertion that odd associations have a rightful place, which strays from the requirement that they be competent, able to provide answers in known terms.