Watching Shadows Against the Wall - New work by Paul Abbott, Simon O'Donovan, Sean Raggett

About

Watching Shadows Against the Wall is the result of a continued dialogue between three London-based artists using photography, taxidermy, light installation and found objects. The work has been installed in a former fire extinguisher factory and will be exhibited for one night only. Three major sculptural works and two large format light box photographs will be presented for the first time.

Paul Abbott (b. 1971) continues his fascination with synchronicity and the 'conversation' between inanimate objects that may suggest life. In this new work this contradiction is explored more with the inclusion of a taxidermied fox. The fox is a duplicitous animal: combing the periphery between the rural and urban, it evokes representation as the cunning, the deceitful, the swift, the vermin, the hunted, the hunter, the beautiful, the loved, and the hated. Presented in near darkness, the sculpture will emanate and delight with mystery, beauty, and intrigue. Abbott will also present an electronic sculpture consisting of re-wired digital diode alarm clocks, an allegory for the measuring and testing of the passage of time, distance, and vision.

Simon O'Donovan (b. 1973) returns to explore the science of vision, darkness, and the idea of peering into separate spaces. In his new work O'Donovan has separated an optometry chart into its forty-four elemental letters. Each letter is displayed in its own light box and increased in scale. The light boxes are illuminated in a coloured pattern, a strategy designed to hold and entice the gaze. These elements are contained within a purpose-built structure within the massive 4000 sq. foot space. Developed from the allegory of Plato's 'Cave' and Duchamp's 'Etant donnes', the viewer is drawn to the contents of the container through eyeholes. O'Donovan's piece echoes the distance between the viewer and the contents of the box, and the 'zero credit' light animation hypnotises with its random movements across the eye test chart.

Sean Raggett (b. 1972) joins the dialogue with two new photographic works centered on the idea of the 'defeatured landscape'. These pictures will be presented in large light boxes, a reference to the grandiosity of Jeff Wall's luminous staged portraits of the late 80s. In this presentation Raggett investigates the constructed grand narratives of German photography, as well as issues of perception, projection and light. Fundamentally the grand scale of these pictures reflect both classicism (museum) and modernity (advertising); to both ends they aim to be ordinary yet sublime, and to portray beauty within the everyday.

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