Mari Kolbeinson: Triangle Walks

About

Dear Andy

Hope you are well.

First a few thoughts on the title. A sentence that has stayed with me whilst working towards this exhibition is ‘I am cash I am oxidation’. Extracted from a poem by the author Namwali Serpell, describing the colour turquoise, neither green nor blue. The poem continues – ‘a word for sad plus a word for jealous… opaque, clear, or mottled…  I am many shades of in-between’

Triangle Walks

The exhibition will present an installation resulting from my recent experiments with the structural elements of painting, the tension between surface/support and how these cohere or unfold in a three dimensional realm.  As you know I have been working with surfaces formed through the pulping and layering of recycled paper. Pigments are added before being cast and left to dry. The paper is often paired with a wooden armature which acts both structurally and as a geometric counter balance to the soft undulating pulp. Two large paper sheets will rest directly on the gallery floor. Close by and freestanding, another element will exist in contrast where the paper is hung contained within a wooden structure. I was also thinking of including some of my recent experiments with other materials such as plaster and concrete, and potentially a few more ‘drifters’. In all of these elements, the individual components will be somewhat unfixed and adjustable; stacked, hung, leaned and assembled in dialogue with the architecture of the space.

The installation brings together my current thoughts surrounding construction and composition; how these may come together, and how the works can coexist in parallel to such fields of design and decoration. The materiality and slow nature of paper-making associated with crafts and building techniques take a nod to furniture designers such as Enzo Mari, Bauhaus and De-Stilj.

Let me hear your thoughts,

Best

Mari