Through the Mirage
Through the Mirage
17–20 November, 2021
Fitzrovia Gallery
139 Whitfield St
London W1T 5EN
Curated by Nicholas Dietrich
We break down the world into comprehensible, countable, geometrical units and thereby figure it and construct it in those terms. This is so successful up to a point that we can come to imagine this is the way the physical world really is.’ AlanWatts
This exhibition brings together the work of fifteen artists, both UK and internationally based. The show explores the influence of the digital upon analogue art-making, but not solely as a celebration of technology.
Review: Through the Mirage
Through the Mirage was curated by Nicholas Dietrich. It brings together an eclectic group, mainly easel based artists, who have had existing works selected with the above statement from Alan Watts in mind. As far as can be determined no work was made as a response to the quote.
The paintings range from abstraction to figuration. Most are of cabinet scale and there are no sculptures, free standing objects, video, sound or multi media works. Does this limit the shows ability to fully investigate the show’s title? I don’t think so.
The gallery itself is a based on a white cube space; wooden floors, white walls with neat overhead spot lamps to illuminate the walls. The light is strong and even, the works presence is similar. There are no standout pieces, but neither are there any works that fail to impress. There is a consistency that belies the sum of the parts.
I looked up the term mirage here and this is what they had to say:
An optical phenomenon, especially in the desert or at sea, by which the image of some object appears displaced above, below, or to one side of its true position as a result of spatial variations of the index of refraction of air.
Something illusory, without substance or reality.
I’d like to think we are dealing with the second entry in the dictionary. Along with the addition of Through in the title, you also get something that alludes to Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll. It’s an interesting starting point to build a curatorial framework. Maybe the title is a mash up of both ideas. So what you have is a mental filter through which you are obliged to disseminate the paintings. On the one hand the feeling is that you are not really seeing what you are looking at, as well as a more surrealistic/ fantastical world overtone that certainly keep you on your toes.
Some highlights of the show starts with James Lawson’s Counting grids 17, a yellow canvas with a red and blue grid like marks that ones eyes try to build order and structure into the pattern. It doesn’t quite find a resolution but perhaps that’s the connection to the mirage.
James Lawson Counting Grid 17, acrylic and pencil on canvas on plywood, 90 x 90cm, 2021
There are a few more standout pieces. Playpaint’s ‘Promising Naming Betting Agreeing Swearing Ordering Predicting Declaring Insisting Refusing’ is a real tongue twister but certainly caught my eye.
playpaint: Promising Naming Betting Agreeing Swearing Ordering Predicting Declaring Insisting Refusing, emulsion paint and acrylic varnish on canvas over ply panels, 122 x 94cm, 2021
Another work that I enjoyed was Megan Bickel’s Untitled 10_Where the war was. A small portrait canvas with some interesting hard edge vs. painterly marks.
Megan Bickel, Untitled 10_Where the War Was, acrylic on canvas, 9 x 12in. 2021
Karen Tronal’s Distant Voices II was another stand out work that also had a little bit of humour about it. I felt a bit like one of these white stick head figures visiting for the first time in almost 18 months gallery spaces.
Karen Tronel, Distant Voices II, oil on canvas, 50 x 60cm, 2021
In conclusion, the show held itself together. It was a little one dimensional with only paintings as I’m sure there are many artists exploring the effect of the digital on the analogue. That said, maybe there is a case for a Through the Mirage pt II which may very well show other artists who are using more varied mediums other than paint.
Chris Tosic
Le Document caught up with James Lawson about the show and his work …
Le Document (LD) Which were your personal faves in the show?
James Lawson (JL) I really love both of the paintings by Playpaint. I suppose this isn’t that surprising as he is the artist in the show who seems to have interests and an approach to making work that is most similar to mine (being concerned with mathematical patterns, sequences and systems and optical effects).
It has been great to get an introduction to his work as I wasn’t fully aware of him before although he is quite well known and has shown broadly. It was especially exciting to see two of the paintings in person as they are both so beautifully made and each employ quite different techniques which you can’t fully apprehend from photographs. I was particularly impressed by his painting Animal Point of View which consists of masked areas of very fine, but slightly blurry parallel lines, which it turns out are spray painted. It’s a fascinating optical effect and must involve incredible skill, although I can’t work out exactly how it’s made!
Other works in the show that I especially like are by Louisa Clark who makes paintings that look abstract but which, on closer inspection, seem to be based on observational paintings or drawings of very abstract still lives and interior spaces, Nicholas Dietrich who makes detailed and beautifully made paintings that resemble surreal interiors or landscapes containing ‘objects’ which seem intriguingly familiar but are at the same time unfathomable, Megan Bickel who makes fascinating heavily layered abstract paintings that involve both gestural painterly mark making and precise hard edged masking and Paul Galas who makes bright and beautifully coloured paintings of familiar scenes that are somehow painterly, abstract and cartoon like in their seemingly effortless loose line-drawn quality.
LD In terms of appreciating a work – How important is skill in how to handle paint? Are bad paintings ones that you think "I could do that!"
JL No, I find that a boring way to look at things and it’s rarely actually true. As an abstract artist who is also a musician, I often find myself using comparisons between art and music as a way to think about these things. For example, some of the best pop songs consist of 2 or 3 chords which any vaguely competent musician could easily copy, but they could never have written the song in the first place! I think it’s much more interesting to ask why has that person done that rather than could I do that myself.
Having said that, sometimes you look at a piece of artwork and am completely blown away by the craftsmanship involved and fascinated by the sheer feat of its creation. Then again sometimes a piece of artwork involves great skill which is a means to an end and shouldn’t necessarily be noticed or be the primary point of the work. Sometimes great emotion / humour / pathos can be expressed in the struggle to depict or express something with ‘insufficient’ materials / time / skill etc.
The painting that I showed in this exhibition involved some skill in creating the underlying grid structure which is fairly intricate. The painting on top of the grid structure was made according to a pre conceived scheme, but I deliberately worked quite fast and relied on hand / eye coordination rather than using masking tape etc. to control the paint, so as to encourage inaccuracies, accident and ‘hand’ in how the paint is applied. I was interested in the relationship between the rigid underlying structure and the looser application. This comes back to my interests in both music and crafts such as weaving where minor variations and accidents can add depth texture to a pre-conceived pattern.
LD What did you like about the theme of the show that made it special or appealing to you?
JL One of the things I found really interesting about the show is that it has an overarching theme (analogue work that is influenced by the digital) but the approaches taken by the individual artists are all very different. This varies from work that is digital in its nature in that it explores numerical or binary patterns and sequences, to work which gives an impression of internet information overload, to work which might have been conceived initially in the digital realm, to work that might take imagery sourced from the internet as it’s starting point, to work that combines printed digital imagery with expressive painted surfaces. I think all of the work in the show is great in its own right but also walking around the show, all of these approaches outlined above affect and inform how you look at each of the other works in the show.
I really like the quote that Nicholas Dietrich who curated the show used in the handout:
‘We break down the world into comprehensible, countable, geometrical units and thereby figure it and construct it in those terms. This is so successful up to a point that we can come to imagine this is the way the physical world really is.’
Alan Watts
Another great outcome of this and all the shows I have been involved in is that your network of like-minded artists gradually grows and you feel more and more part of a community of artists.
The exhibition was organised by...
Nicholas Dietrich Williams --
nicholasdietrich.co.uk
