Give or Take

About

The artists in the exhibition are all exploring drawing in different ways and with different materials. They have been brought together in this show because they are all working with line in such a way that the line informs/describes and creates the final image.

Like the title of the show (which relates to the Louis Bourgeois’ sculpture depicting an outstretched and a closed hand to form a single entity, perhaps expressing opposition)all the artists are involved in their own dialogue with anexisting structure, memory, form or idea by ‘rebelling’ against it to reimagine a different outcome.

Neil Groom’s drawings are interpreting magnetic fields in various states of instability. He makes organic lines which revolve in a seemingly chaotic uncontrolled way to unravel and explore these ideas whilst at the same time, he is re-working/re-conjuring a paradigm of scientific enquiry through his artistic interpretation.

Simon Leahy-Clark’s drawings are made from collaging newspaper on canvas. The lines in his work are formed by a considered process of selecting and slicing the pieces of paper and carefully placing them piece by piece on the canvas. The joined-up and collaged lines and marks make an illusion to language and hand writing by reinterpreting and presenting to the viewer something which appears familiar but yet is indecipherable. 

Julie Rafalski is using line to reimagine spaces which she has seen/inhabited over different time periods. The gentle pencil line in her work flows organically to connect these spaces and to recreate a new form which is an amalgam of theseremembered spaces. The reimagined spaces are both evocative and singular.

Sharon Leahy-Clark is using a pre-patterned surface which she responds to intuitively using watercolour marks. She both follows and works against the pre-existing lines in the patterns. By re-working her lines over and over she is creating a dialectic which in turn creates a new image.