The impossibility of an island

About

For the duo show The impossibility of an island, held at Herrick Gallery, London, Helsinki based artists Jaakko Mattila and EGS come together in an exploration of the amorphous nature of cultural identity. Mattila has for decades worked on issues around personal ontology and being, employing the motif of the circle within the painterly tradition and through sculpture. EGS began by the marking—and therefore mapping—of urban streets as a graffiti artist, and has developed his interest in cartography within a fine art setting, working in glass and printmaking.

The two artists are together revisiting London—the territory in which they both lived and worked in the late '90s and early '00s in order to combine their research into personal and societal geographies at a time of global rethinking regarding local and wider identities.