Nick Goss. Bluing

About

The exhibition furthers the artist’s exploration of both transient and contemplative places, where ideas are allowed to gestate. Previous works have traversed the inhabited spaces of performance and rehearsal venues, and in this instance, a family run launderette in West London. The launderette perfectly embodies a place of cultural mixing, public function and personal intimacy. The humid aroma of detergent, unkempt horticulture and kitsch decoration appear as exotic signifiers of cultural heritage and migration.

The title Bluing takes its name from a commonly used laundering technique. A chemical process that distorts the way we see, tricking the viewer into seeing something brighter than the reality. The color blue maintains historical associations in both art and music, often being deployed to induce or reflect a certain melancholic state.

Goss incorporates a diverse set of techniques that, in turn, expose the locations layered psychological qualities. Experimenting with salt and fabric dye, soaking the raw linen and allowing them to react with each other, enables process to dictate the space within the paintings. The salt and dyes express ideas of entropy and fading memory – of a bluing, waterlogged world. The technique of staining linen together with stenciling and screen-printing, is contrasted with tighter more brittle drawing and mark making. Obliquely distorted and incomplete compositions evoke a fragmented impression of the eclectic interior.