George Charman - A Straight Line to the touch is worth a Circle to the sight

About

Centre for Recent Drawing is pleased to present a solo exhibition of large-scale graphite powder drawings by the British artist George Charman. The common thread that runs through Charman's drawing practice is a curiosity in the mechanics of illusionary space. This most recent series of drawings takes as its stating point, the axonometric grid. Through a process of division and sub-division, Charman dismantles the axonometric grid to reveal a series of equally diminishing equilateral triangles. These triangles are employed in a subversive manner by Charman to shift the grid away from its original intention — understanding three-dimensional space through a linear form of projection — and instead layers and overlaps the grid to reveal dimensional arrangements constructed from perceived tonal shifts brought about by the relative proximity of one shape to another. As you move alongside Charman's wall drawings and large-scale works on paper, they also appear to move. The instability inherent in perceiving geometric space as solid space discloses itself; where the eye and the mind attempts to understand the incommensurability of the individual triangles creating the drawing and the shape of the drawing as a whole. A Straight Line to the touch is worth a Circle to the sight is both the title of the exhibition and the collective title of Charman's new series of drawings. It is borrowed from Edwin A. Abbott's novel Flatland, a fictional introduction to the concepts of relativity and multidimensional space. George Charman is an artist who lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2008 and has since exhibited nationally and internationally, with exhibition including Bemis Open, Bemis Centre for Contemporary Art Omaha Nebraska (2013); Creekside Open APT Gallery London (2013); LONDON/BERLIN, fruehsorge contemporary, Berlin (2012); Once Again and Always New, ACME Project Space London (solo, 2012); Play/Game/Place/State, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London (2012); And Then Again, Lisbon City Museum, Lisbon (2010). www.george-charman.co.uk Please join us as part of the Whitechapel Gallery's First Thursdays for the reception and viewing of the work 6 - 8pm Thursday 7 October 2013, or during normal opening times 7 October - 7 Novemebr 2013 from 1 - 6pm Thursdays to Saturdays at 2 - 4 Highbury Station Road, Highbury Islington, London. C4RD is a Registered UK Charity 1123530, and would particularly like to acknowledge the support for this exhibition of the Dovehouse Trust and ARTUPDATE.COM/.