Reality and its disorders

About

Over 30 artists working in video, performance, installation, painting, photography and printed works respond to the new currents that have shaped their lives for a physical exhibition at the Espacio Gallery.
 
Using strategies ranging from humour and playfulness to forensic attention to the body, the works examine states of minds, the new rituals for interaction, the heightened role of touch, and the dance of the body between danger and desire.
 
The tentative and almost abstract sculptural forms by Roisin Kerslake Sim, Alicia Monedero and Sally de Courcy are juxtaposed with Julia Maddison’s strange little sanctuaries dotted around the gallery, while Henryk Teriplowski’s life size figure is a celebration of all the introverts who have come into their own during self-isolation.
 
Marketa Senkyrik, Yvonne Feng, Fierce Fine Art make the body and its vulnerability the central theme of their works, while Ben Wilson explores states of mind through his auto portraits and Christine Warrington empathetic figures stitched from nurses uniforms refer to her own past as an intensive care nurse.
 
Jenny Nash’s powerful b/w images of her isolated self are juxtaposed against Lidia Lidia’s exuberant and colourful photographic installation “The waiting room”; Lewis Andrews’ stark “Quarantined light” and Roelof Bakker’s sensitive monoprints on toilet paper focus on the Self while Lizzie Brown’s collage of photographs celebrates her local community who found new ways of bringing people together through street dances.
 
Short video based works include the almost abstract “Factory” by Nenad Nedeljkov,  the lyrical “Isolation and self” by Freya Tewelde with an Eritrean folk soundtrack, Wu Cong’s exploration of confusion and mental disorder “Fancy a call later tonight?” , Jody Oberfelder playful “X and O” referencing the iconography of Zoom, and La Liana’s investigation of anxiety and playfulness.
 
There are also two longer videos, Terry Silvester’s “Fertile” with its fractured narrative and passages of extraordinary beauty and We are Willow’s documentation of the restrictive daily routines of 2 artists in seperate locations.
 
Marta Pieregonczuk’s installation explores tensions in intimate relationships during lockdown, Lisa Kreuziger’s yellow 2 metre rules ostentatiously mark out the galley space to define spatial relationships between people in the gallery and Tom Hackett’s installation is a playful reflection on the changed sterility of family shopping.
 
Performative works pose a challenge in these times but this exhibition gives a central place to them. Nat Steinhouse’s movement pieces enabling people to experience connection without touching through simultaneous movement; Lidia Lidia undertakes a many voiced performance with her collaborator Mr Slimbones; Tom Hackett and Julian Woodcock’s recite experiential anecdotes through a megaphone 100 metres apart as they approach each other in the street; contrastingly Roelof Bakker’s performance comprises quietly walking within the gallery reciting a text then exiting; Andrea Arnold explores disquiet using invented pyramidal dice to choreograph her own and audience movements; Christina Lovey’s joyful virtual collisions control the direction of her movements based on quantum theory and I Ching. Finally, Thirtyminutes, a three person collaboration explore togetherness/separation, clarity/obfuscation in a one-time only audio visual performance at the gallery.

Artist taking part in the exhibition are: Lewis Andrews, Andrea Arnold, Roelof Bakker, La Liana, Lizzie Brown, We are Willow, Wu Cong, Sally de Courcy, Ahmed Farooqui, Yvonne Feng, Tom Hackett, Roisin Kerslake-Sims, Lisa Kreuziger, Mariusz Libel, Christina Lovey, Julia Maddison, Alicia Monedero, Louise Mortimer, LidiaLidia, Jenny Nash, Nenad Nedeljkov, Jody Oberfelder, Marta Pieregonczuk, Louise Scillitoe-Brown, Marketa Senkyrik, Nat Li Lin Steinhouse, Terry Sylvester, Henryk Terpilowski, Freya Tewelde, Thirtyminutes, Christine Warrington, Ben Wilson, Julian Woodcock.

The exhibition is on 9-19 September at the Espacio Gallery, 159 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 7DG. Opening hours are Wed-Fri 3-7pm, Sat-Sun 2-6pm, Closed Mon & Tues.

Curated by Ahmed Farooqui for the Degrees of Freedom artist group
Promotional image by Lidia Lidia.