PM/AM latest exhibition, 03 features artists Hannah Sophie Dunkelberg, Louise Giovanelli, Igor Hosnedl, Mevlana Lipp, Jack Otway, Ellie Pratt and Lina Scheynius, explores the engagement of artists with the world around them, both real and fictional.
As an individual, we are always questioning whether our perception of the world can be considered as accurate or if our interpretation is offset by factors we can’t control. Can you ever be really sure that your lived experience is what is truly representative of the human condition? The artists in this show all exemplify a practice which reaches into our familiar and twist it around a recognisable framework to leave us questioning whether what we knew all along as “the way things were”, are in fact illusory lenses acting as personalised Rorschach relief-prints, rendered off the actual and presented as our personal experience.
Hannah Sophie Dunkelberg’s works are almost archaeological in their presentation. Acting almost as plaster reliefs to a Cyberpunk Pompeii, they act as artefacts to a cerebral memory. Instead of cataloguing what was, they function as fragments of that which is only found through the electrical firing in our nerve-endings. Much in the way sedimentary rock formations provide a cross-section of natural epochs, Dunkelberg’s work provide us with a slice of thought, memory and experience without cause or effect, Louise Giovanelli’s paintings are tactile to view. A colour palette of pastel colours intersects with a visual unsettling texture that teases the viewer viscerally. As if the viewer is experiencing keyhole surgery under local anaesthetic. Scars on unidentifiable figures makes one aware of their own physical body whilst oblique, ambiguous, images of vegetation, fibres and vaguely recognisable objects create a dialogue with the viewer on what is being perceived. Like the familiar scenery of your childhood bedroom transfigured into the unfamiliar once the lights are switched out, they work in constant dialogue of what is perceived between artist, viewer and back again.
Igor Hosnedl’s work’s are scenes of surreal possession and transformation. Phantom limbs are transformed into ceramics, breasts lying as figs next to seemingly un-fussed owners blur the boundaries between the metaphysical self and the physically banal world. The works are filled with semiotic references with the specific choice of objects and characters playing out stories within a theatrical world. Where the objects almost star on stage whilst the figures move in the background as a combination of set-design and ownership. If Hosnedl’s work is an exploration of theatrical transfiguration Mevlana Lipp’s works clearly exist between two states. Both object and figure, the paintings dance between states of being. Objectively plant-like forms stretch into hands, tendrils extend into fingers and back again, a constant waltz between a dream and the real.
Ellie Pratt’s portraits create an unsettling display of disconnection between subject and scene. Blank stares engage the viewer with unemotional figures rooted within an environment that seems to be happening “to” them as opposed to “with” them. The works echo how we live in a world ever-in-movement and that our individual experience is both significant and inconsequential.
Lina Schneyius’ work removes the compositional foreplay present within the show to provide us with the diaristic images of a life lived authentically. Shorn of social media convention, the language of the photographic images construct a perception of one person’s reality based on the tactile sense of taste, touch and smell.
London based Jack Otway’s paintings obscure rather than reveal. Much as the straining eye struggles to separate textural feedback, Otway’s paintings create an uncanny textural surface that mimics the natural fibres of hair with the mechanical procedure of factory processed liquids. We are subsequently drawn to the gesture whilst engaging with the idea that this is something we recognise but cannot identify. Whilst we can all accept that our individual perception and reading of the world is unique, the practice of artists sharing their own interpretation of the world is partly the human condition of willing oneself to be understood and the artist’s natural experience of creating a dialogue between their world and the world that exists within an audience. As a group, the artists in this presentation are subsequently reminding us of the depth of human experience – the conversation between the outside world and the one that lives within
ourselves. With what we understand of the mind still being explored, the collection of works in this exhibition offer a glimpse into an arena that can not seemingly exist without the existence of both artist, and viewer.
03 at PM/AM, 44a Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3PD 8th–30th November PV Thursday 7th November, 6–9pm
PM/AM is a contemporary art gallery repositioned to reflect how we engage with art today. The gallery acts as a conduit outside of traditional models, connecting artists to audiences of curators, institutions, writers, collectors and art lovers. The gallery’s core program delivers a range of exhibitions, events, and engagement on and offline–promoting a curated selection of emerging and underrepresented contemporary art. Existing between project space, art advisory, and online platform, PM/AM’s online presence forms the
foundation of its community. pmam.org
