Topographic Translations: Iteration 2
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If you are in London in May then we recommend checking out the upcoming exhibition, 'Topographic Translations: Iteration 2' presented by MadeScapes, a Bristol based collective showing at two locations during the Bristol Biennial.
Utrophia
120 Deptford High Street, London
18th - 25th May
Private View 16th May
Open for Last Fridays Event 25th 6pm-9pm
Press Release
Our species inhabits and moves through a vast variety of surroundings. As we traverse natural and created environments we endeavor to understand them.
MadeScapes presents 'Topographic Translation: Iteration 2', an exhibition of sculpture and installation by four artists whose work stems from the complex connections we make with our physical environments and the shared desire to develop an understanding of this relationship.
Peoplescapes as cityscapes; romanticized perceptions of landscapes reconfigured; the cold, unforgiving nature of the pavement beneath our feet transformed into microcosmic urban topographies. From map-making to embroidery, surface duplication to object production, the exhibition develops the dialogue established in ‘Topographic Translation’ at Bristol Diving School, offering further impressions of how we understand and rationalise the dynamic relationship we have with our environment.
Locations have been discovered by geographic limitations and then presented in Nic Marshall’s sculptures. A clean cut square frames a textured surface that has been replicated and isolated from these locations. The viewer is invited to simultaneously interpret both the location his work references in the outside world and the scaled down, adventurous landscape it portrays in the exhibition.
Lizzie Cannon investigates the interface between biological forces and the human desire for control. Through pencil rubbings she maps the urban terrain, producing a landscape reminiscent of forested mountains or fluvial plains. Drawing is used as a process of organic growth, the pencil taking the path of least resistance along weaknesses in the pavement’s surface. Hand embroidered details draw the viewer in, mirroring the experience of finding a miniature world within a crack in the pavement. In her sculptural work, Cannon re-configures fragments of found pavement. Embroidery is used as a subtle transmutation from the hard, unforgiving surface of this urban substrate to seemingly organic growths that colonize cracks and crevices within the pavement.
In her series of Bodyscapes, Poppy Pitt explores the fluid nature of boundaries between the body and its immediate environment. Using a mixture of hard and soft materials she creates sculptures and installations that represent the landscapes created by human bodies as they move through urban spaces. Her work invites an intimacy and creates a delicate and soft encounter with the viewer whilst at the same time imposing a weight on the gallery space, and making the encounter with the viewer a physical interaction. Her work presents the body as an entity, which both impresses and is impressed upon by its environment, and maps that interaction.
Tom Johnson’s work offers pixelated geometries which question our perception of traditional landscape construction. Colours may be borrowed from a remembered scene, a classical painting, or a hyper-real video-game environment. The process of pixellation removes recognisable points of reference to subvert logical comprehension of the landscape, in favour of a looser, more subjective narrative delivery. Tom’s combination of traditional and digital techniques as well as over-complicated, rudimentary framing reiterates the human element of the works production.
Artists:
Lizzie Cannon
Tom Johnson
Nic Marshall
Poppy Pitt
