‘ALIGNMENT’

ALIGNMENT

Mary Yacoob and Kevin Quigley present studies of ‘elements’ for their exhibition ALIGNMENT

Geometrical elements in Line / Measurement / Angle / Shape.

They will be exploring the fundamentals of mark-making and drawing, using and demonstrating a range of techniques in schematics and printmaking, drawing, relief printing, mono-print and cyanotype.

Since 3000 BC, observers have been fascinated by the study, development and analysis of spatial relations in line, measurement, angle and shape. Through necessity, they developed techniques in the surveying and measurement of everyday phenomena.

The Greek Mathematician, Euclid, who worked at the Library of Alexandria, described ‘10 Greek Axioms’ which he referred to as his ‘elements’. These ‘elements’ went on to form the empirical basis and foundation of science and reasoning. Euclid’s text, written in the 3rd century BC, was entitled ‘The Elements of Geometry’, or in Greek ‘Geo Metron’ (Earth Measurement). Euclid’s text continues to enlighten, and is studied today as geometry continues to sub-divide into new, advanced forms, delineating the universe around us.

So important was the study of line and shape that Pythagoras and Plato often wrote ecstatically about ‘geometry’ as the key to the interpretation of the universe.  Thus, geometry gained an association with the sublime, to complement its earthy origins and its reputation as the exemplar of precise reasoning.

Mary Yacoob’s cyanotypes for ALIGNMENT at Gallery 46 immerse viewers in the mysterious sensory-chromatic ambiance of star maps and the night sky. Lightboxes and colour-saturated drawings explore relations between geometry, spatial relations, and our perceptual experience. The evolution of visually complex and harmonious alignments suggest artistic creativity as a metaphor for the creativity inherent in all natural processes.

Kevin Quigley’s work for ALIGNMENT at Gallery 46 is a series of drawings, mono-prints and relief printing in which he is drawing inspiration from the occult sciences of geomancy and talismanic making. Producing two sets of print works, Kevin Quigley sets out to explore the esoteric meaning of number, markmaking and alignment from ‘earth energies’ in the landscape to power sigils used throughout magic and religious traditions.

ARTIST STATEMENTS

MARY YACOOB

Mary Yacoob’s work encompasses pen and ink on paper, printmaking, wall drawings, and large format vinyl artworks.

She appropriates visual languages from architectural plans, maps, geological and engineering diagrams, alphabets, and musical notation, etc, extrapolating this imagery in directions that experiment with order and balance, symmetry and measurement, systems, and imagination.

The hand-made gesture, intricacy, repetition, and rhythm are key aspects of her work.

KEVIN QUIGLEY

is an artist/curator his work centres around a form of artistic archaeology – scratching into the murky realms of the profane, ‘the hidden’ and the unknown.

His research embraces a modern look at the metaphysical ‘workings’ of creativity.

He devises and co-curates LIMINALITY with Bjørn Hatleskog and Sean Mclusky – a series of cross platform exhibitions that brings together visual-sound-performance works that sets out to explore the limits of consciousness / liminal states of being / thresholds within.

He also curates and programmes EXPANDED_MUSIC an art-music platform with Sean McLusky.

GEO-METRON ENSEMBLE

are a collective of cross-disciplinary artists working in Sculpture, Sound and Performance.

Bjørn Hatleskog

Minerva de Carvalho

Phill Wilson-Perkin

Disinformation

Bjørn Hatleskog

is a London-based artist, one half of acoustmatic spoken-word project Storyteller, also releasing music under the moniker Romvelope. His work is located somewhere between electro-acoustic music and sound sculptural bricolage, exploring the nature of feedback loops, noise and interference and their application via mechanical automation. He is also the curator at Surgery.Gallery, and the manager of the record label Adaadat.

Minerva de Carvalho

is a visual and sound artist whose work explores dichotomies between digital/analogue, conscious/subconscious, presence/absence, with a focus on ‘otherness’ and ‘liminality’.

Her sound performances are influenced by experimentalism, noise and musique concrète with added mystical and hauntological qualities.

Phill Wilson-Perkin

uses Sculpture, sound recordings, and performance. Exploring aesthetics used in bolstering cultural systems. Examining their adoption or vilification through counter-cultural tropes and institutional frameworks.

Phill Wilson-Perkin lives and works in London. He has exhibited nationally and internationally including Liminality, at Gallery 46, London, 2019. Hmn, London 2018, We Labour, We Labour, We Labour at FiveYears Gallery, London, 2017. By the End of Play for the Glasgow Open House, 2017. Enter The Dragon at the ICA, London, 2015. Phill has been a member of Five Years since 2017. Founded in 1998, Five Years’ initial aim was to set up a gallery that was artist-run and where programming would maintain a direct relationship to practice. Five Years continues to develop this aim of maintaining close links between the production and exhibition of work, and the discourse which informs it. Wilson-Perkin is also the co-curator of the Archway Sound Symposium. A series of exhibitions, events and workshops across Archway. These explored the relationship between live performance, recorded work, and artists scores.

Disinformation

is a pioneering and highly influential electronic music and installation art project, whose work is primarily concerned with electricity, communications and language. Early Disinformation artworks explore the creative potential of electromagnetic (mostly radio) noise – notably the sound artwork “National Grid”, which was first published (on LP) and performed live in 1996, and first exhibited (as an art gallery sound installation) in 1997. The “Rorschach Audio” research project is concerned with the psychology of interpretation of ambiguous speech sounds (of distorted radio communications chatter), and with the role that psychoacoustics and audio illusions play in the perception of language. “Rorschach Audio” is one of the first artist projects to apply research-as-art-practice methodology – the earliest “Rorschach Audio” text piece was published in 1999, and an updated and peer-reviewed version was published by the MIT Press in 2001, before the project received major AHRC funding in 2007, and a “Rorschach Audio” hardback was published in 2012. More recent projects include “The Act of Creation” (aka “Let There Be Language”) light artwork, commissioned in 2016, and the “Language [as] Meta Technology” sound artwork, first exhibited in 2018, exploring semiotic and even ideological aspects of language and sound.