So Many Constellations

About

VINCENT HAWKINS I LINDA HEMMERSBACH I NICHOLAS JOHN JONES I WENDY MCLEAN I
HANNAH LUXTON I EMMA PUNTIS I LAURA SMITH I SHARON SWAINE

curated by Linda Hemmersbach

Taking its title from Paul Celan’s poem ‘Soviel Gestirne’ (1963), the exhibition points towards painting’s ability to express the ‘unspeakable’ and ‘unknowable’, beyond the grasp of language. Exploring the importance of this idea, the show contains works of abstraction and figuration that consider pauses, breaks, shifts or emptiness as places that can be occupied spatially and psychologically.

‘Constellation’ refers to a human construction; both a forming of recognisable patterns to make meaning of that which is unfathomable, and also a group of related ideas, feelings or objects. The paintings in this exhibition may be read as existing at a point of a delicate permeability between micro and macrocosm, interior and exterior, bridging the gap between studio and world.

Paul Celan described a poem as ‘lonely and en route’. Similarly, a painting is an object ‘en route’ towards an encounter. Like a bottle thrown out to sea, its fate is uncertain, posing questions into the void. Contained and isolated, it hints at a reality beyond its edges, where meaning is found in darkness and uncertainty, at the fringe of experience.