ELENCHUS presents PHYLACTERY
Materiality and Magic
LONDONEWCASTLE ARTS
1st to 10th October 2021
Dates
Exhibition Dates
1st – 10th October 2021
1st October Private View | 6 – 10pm
2nd October – Live Performance | 7 – 8pm
Artists
Moritz Berg
Daniel Brusatin
Tom Cartmill
Peter Evans
Lucy Faherty
Gabriele Herzog
Mark Houghton
Murphy Moritz
Nyksan
Michael Thomas
MORITZ BERG
Throughout his body of work Berg searches for ways to interpret abstract conventions such as scale, color, shape and arrangement in order to redefine strategies to understand our relationship with the things surrounding us. His drawings, paintings, assemblages, sculptures and video installations focus on the development of a new vocabulary which allows him to deal with the instability and the fast pace of today. The constant attitude of questioning what we see, is contemplated as a tool for thinking and feeling and as an alternative way of imagining the possibilities of a collective derived from individual perceptions.
DANIEL BRUSATIN
Even though Daniel Brusatin’ work comprises diverse artistic disciplines: Sculpture, drawing, ceramics, stained glass and architecture; he has always kept painting as the central axis of his practice. it is throughout the relationship and conversation between these mediums that his work starts to shape up. Exploring visual language through semiotics, art history, traditional techniques and the act of making, Brusatin attempts to blur the arbitrary lines dividing the arts and encourages questions of fundamental phenomena as the relationship between the perpetual forces of nature and the hand of the artist, the curios case of ‘accidentality’ in a chaotically organised world and the role art plays in civilisation.
Formally and Conceptually his work anchors the contemporary world in tradition, art his- tory and the psychology of engagement creating a dialectic between materials and artistic expressions that serve as a catalyst to this visual poetry; based upon the idea that “beauty is not a characteristic linked to any particular thing but a state of understanding” Brusatin looks for common denominators, triggers, and expressions of primal relatability. Subjects often treated in his work are the relationship between abstract and figurative art, the conception of the work and the creation of an image in an era of careless mass-production and the importance of the artistic experience; the present and emotional engagement between the work and the viewer.
Turning the subject matter into art itself this lines are dissolved and their effect multiplied. For Brusatin to define is to limit and a practice in constant revision and experimentation becomes the only path to evolve the artistic language.
TOM CARTMILL
My main focus is drawing, where the possibilities of the materials are explored. I work in mixed media on board and on paper.
Change through time and the inevitable accumulation of experience are themes that have underpinned my practice from early on. The way that buildings and much used objects age, weathering and transforming with the passage of time, is a constant source of inspiration. I work at evoking a ‘patina of experience’ in my pictures. This directly relates to the methods used to make my work, where I combine conventional techniques with more innovative processes. Layers of media are built up, to be abraded, worn through and overlaid yet again, mirroring the passage of time and giving glimpses of the unfolding story of the making of the work itself.
As well as an abiding interested in visual perception, I am interested in the function of memory. In particular, the fact that our understanding of the world around us (people, places, concepts) is filtered or conditioned through our memories. There also seems to be a connection that, however much we toil to comprehend and to broaden our knowledge, our understanding will never be whole.
Much of my work can be characterised by what is missing. There is a resonance contained in a fragment, of stories to be guessed at, what has been lost…
PETER EVANS
My practice begins with the collecting of found objects and materials, items from the streets or private spaces that can be reworked and presented in new often abstract forms.
Taking inspiration from the passed over spaces of the everyday, routine behaviour and the familiarity of the habitual, my work celebrates the aspects of life that might be hiding in plain sight: overheard snippets of conversation, discarded National Lottery scratch cards and disused food crates, have all been taken and repurposed to allow the viewer space for a new interpretation of an ordinary world. It’s the things we walk past everyday unnoticed, the unremarkable sides of our existence that I celebrate and bring to the fore in a new conception; postcards are dissected and re-presented in book form; a ripped billboard poster is turned into an abstract collage.
I am currently living and working in the countryside of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My latest works take discarded materials that were once used in the transportation and distribution of food and present these in minimal bold forms, bringing together the two often alienated worlds of the abstract minimalist and the rural producer.
LUCY FAHERTY
Lucy Faherty is an artist and designer. Her work is grounded in using design as a tool for research, where sculptures are considered the outputs of these investigations. Lucy’s work considers the Anthropocene and more specifically, human relationships with nature. Her most recent vases and sculptures interrogate these themes through the combination of architectural forms and geology, exploring a tension and harmony that exists between the natural and artificial. Using found rocks and cast geometric forms, her sculptures contrast organic silhouettes with contemporary lines to comment on the co-existence of humans with nature. The works, some of which have an air of instability, suggest an appreciation for the aesthetics of human-made forms, whilst also commenting on our often overlooked yet unwavering reliance on the natural world.
GABRIELE HERZOG
Gabriele Herzog works the surfaces of her canvas in such a way that the elements of light and dark, or rather, negative and positive space become complex and undefined. What was once positive now appears to be negative. There is a formidable and delicate tension between the balance of positive and negative space. This tension evokes a reaction of emotional immediacy, a sense that the balance could be knocked off kilter at any time. The works are viewed with caution. The finished works expose a sense of calm but are menacing nonetheless.
MARK HOUGHTON
These works quietly demand to occupy the contexts within which they are created for.
The painting/objects often incorporate diverse materials such as canvas, cement, metal and plaster to suggest absence and presence, failure, tragedy and loss, yet their seductive, intensely worked surfaces and surprising scale and form infuse the works with hope and optimism and embrace the viewer.
As well as referencing the built environment, these works suggest their own construction and deliberately instigate a dialogue with the architecture of the site within which they are placed. An interdependency with our environment is intimated and the impossibility of an individual identity that is not shaped or marked by relationships, incidents or experiences implied.
The surfaces embody time and a physical relationship within a two dimensional surface that is drawn into a three dimensional space. Despite repetitious manipulation – building up, sanding back, scarring, painting, rubbing, erasing, revealing and being chipped away at – the works vie for life. This evidence of human endeavour is knowingly seductive, contemplative and contains a vitality that seems pertinent for a screen based, technological age.
MICHAEL THOMAS MURPHY
Murphy’s ceramics and drawings respond to the things surrounding him daily, both online and off, reflecting on bodily and haptic experience. The drawings inform the ceramics and build on the drawings’ defining lines, shapes, and overlapping layers. Each ceramic work is built on the exact dimensions of the drawings. The work tends to veer towards abstraction through the flattened perspective and muted/reduced colour combinations. A state of occurrence exists where it is not clear if everything is collapsing and falling apart or on the contrary, forming and coming together. Combining all these constructed elements and midway transitional domains gives the work tension and dynamics with the size creating an affinity to one another.
Murphy has exhibited widely in both UK & Ireland, most notably the RA summer exhibition in 2017. He is also part of many private and corporate collocations.
NYKSAN
Nicolás Sánchez is a Colombian sound artist, electronic musician and producer who focuses his practice on the philosophical and physical aspect of sound. Influenced by currents such as Musique concrète, noise and syncretism, a large part of his work illustrates and discusses such thoughts through the plasticity of sound. Nicolas also works as a DJ under the Nyksan alias. Furthermore, his Unterbog project has freshened and consolidated the underground electronic music subculture surrounding Techno in Colombia since almost a decade.
Now based in London, Nicolas is co-founder of the Ambient label Hoy Records and Tratratrax, a record label created to showcase the relationship between Perreo (as a resistance sound of Latin America) and electronic/future sounds and narratives. He has delivered sonic journeys at NTS, Sónar, Ars Electronica, Baum Festival, Video Club, Brilliant Corners, amongst others.
Information
The job of the artist is to delve into the intangible and bring it to being. Phylacteries, have been from the beginning of human’s spiritual journey objects that connect us through time and space to a higher state of consciousness. Amulets worn for their magic, objects enchanted to contain a soul, cases holding relics or a simple souvenir passed on from an ancestor. These objects are an intrinsic part of history, our emotional development, civilisation and life itself. Whether they are created, found, transmitted or repurposed we crave for meaning and soak them with it.
The exhibition explores the materiality and sacredness of objects. The artists, through different avenues explore the physical, psychological and spiritual connections in what we call real. PHYLACTERY is a dialogue between humanity and the space we inhabit.
