Ruth Proctor: Still Not Fixed

About

John Jones Project Space is pleased to present its first residency exhibition at the new Arts Building in Finsbury Park. Still Not Fixed is an exhibition borne out of Ruth Proctor's six-month residency at John Jones and draws upon the many elements that make up her rich and diverse practice. Working with the architecture of the Project Space and her ongoing interest in the body as spectacle, Proctor has incorporated a wall-to-wall synthetic ice floor into the exhibition. Visitors are required to skate around the space in order to view the work.

Proctor initially trained as an ice skater, competing at championship level, before turning to art in her early twenties. An element of performance still runs through much of her work, which nearly always alludes to the body – as spectacle, as physical capacity and as presence. Proctor’s work is characterised by its poetic language and use of ephemeral acts, running across media including drawing, sculpture, installation, film and performance.

For John Jones Project Space, Proctor has created a body of new works that collectively provoke a subjective response in the visitor. The gallery is transformed into a performative space: a synthetic ice floor, slotted together like a jigsaw puzzle, speaks of a false reality fabricated by the artist. The gallery’s large windows are transformed into an audience of cartoon eyes intended to invert the traditional relationship between artwork and viewer: the windows are no longer looked through, but act as both a barrier at the exhibition’s threshold and a voyeur to the activities within. One of the gallery walls has been painted an average shade of sky blue, and the intimate works hung upon it teasingly require careful navigation on a pair of ice-skates.

The exhibition's title Still Not Fixed refers to the state of perpetual transience, which is both a feature of the exhibition and the artist's wider practice. It also resonates with the physical act of slipping on ice. Each work in the exhibition not only builds upon the idea of a false reality but also becomes a short-hand for ‘presentness’, a notion that has become central to Proctor’s most recent work. The works displayed challenge the visitor's sense of gravitational space, sharing Proctor’s preoccupation with presentness, and the elusiveness of the moment, with the spectator.

Biography

Graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2005, Ruth Proctor has since exhibited nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include I Was There, Norma Mangione Gallery, Turin, 2014; Falling Backwards, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, 2013; I’ll be your mirror, Siobhan Davies Studios, London, 2011; and Luck and Protection, Hollybush Gardens, London, 2010. Proctor was selected for the 2012 edition of the Whitechapel Open, the Drawing Room’s 2013 Drawing Biennial, and Bold Tendencies, 2013, all London.

Free, but booking essential. To book a 30-minute time slot via Eventbrite, please follow this link.

Please note that this exhibition incorporates a functioning ice-rink which requires visitor participation. We ask visitors to read the following guidelines:

• - Entry to exhibition space is through a half hour time slot. Please arrive 15 minutes earlier from your allocated slot to collect your ice skates.
• - Access to the exhibition is via Exeter Street Bakery entrance. Please speak to a member of staff on arrival
• - Please note that the exhibition is unsupervised and ice-skating takes place at your own risk.
• - The following age restrictions apply: children over 7 years only permitted in the exhibition space. Under 16’s must be accompanied by an adult
• - No food or drink is permitted in the gallery space.