Hotel Michele and Liminal Gallery are delighted to present a collaborative exhibition ‘Bunch’, which brings together the works of Liz Crossfield, Mafalda Figueriedo, Kavel Rafferty, Cherelle Sappleton, Tracey Slater, Jeni Snell, Alexis Soul-Gray and Olivia Strange. The multimedia exhibition of eight women and non-binary artists spans drawing, collage, painting, print and sculpture.
The exhibition title ‘Bunch’ refers to ‘a number of things closely grouped together’ and the two curators, Louise Fitzjohn and Kavel Rafferty, bring together a variety of contemporary artists working in surprising and nuanced ways. Binding and bridging; the works selected create connections, conversations and relationships between the artists and the curators.
The bright and breezy palette of Liz Crossfield’s works on paper lulls the viewer in, abstraction giving way to soft hints of flora as she unpacks themes of femininity. Her practice is instinctive, intuitive and connects with the felt sense, inner voice, and the wild underworld.
The surreal scapes of Mafalda Figueriedo’s paintings are an exploration of self, a dreamlike deconstruction of her own being while exploring the idea of perception and voyeurism.
Redaction and the removal of sensitive information is a key aspect of Kavel Rafferty’s practice. Taking magazine cuttings and thick black enamel paint, the artist obscures key elements, leaving us with tantilising reveals. Using kitsch ornaments dipped in black rubber, the redaction escalates to fetish, turning these often overlooked items into desirable, pleasurable, tactile objects.
Cherelle Sappleton uses the black female body as a starting point to explore and respond to issues of representation, agency and the materiality of photographs via photomontage, collage, moving image and photography. Their practice centres on photographic media with an interest in feminist agendas and performance utilising abstraction and surrealist aesthetics.
Tracey Slater’s loose drawings have a refreshing energy to them, immediate lines give way to the naked form, where women stare out from the paper, deadpan and relishing their nudity. They are the aggressive observer, defiantly holding the viewers eye, jeering as they flaunt their bodies.
“The process is the most important part. Raw lines attach the emotions in which they are created. It’s exciting and joyful to experience”.
Paying homage to Guernsey’s German Occupation heritage, Jeni Snell often works with cast-concrete methodology to create sculptures, such as in the new series of ‘Brutalist ice-creams’. Adopting the make-do-and-mend creative resourcefulness of Channel-Islanders under German Occupation, Jeni combines found discarded objects collected from daily walks in the city with made objects. Re-purposing has developed from her/their life-choices into her/their arts practice and is also an ecological comment against human greed and our throw-away society.
After the traumatic loss of her own mother, Alexis Soul-Gray uses her practice to explore loss; loss of a person and the displacement of love reserved for that person. Using scenes of domesticity from wide ranging sources such as knitting patterns and vintage ephemera, the artist questions notions of motherhood and home. Yet her works are warm, reclaiming the lost characters.Figures appear softly, tarnished with the decay of passing time, both nostalgic and raw. The artists sympathetic hand and enthrallingly soft loose lines rendering ghostly images from her soft palette to give the viewer a
sense of ease amidst the emotively charged works.
Witch-like talons, breasts, tentacles and oysters intermingle in Olivia Strange’s multi-disciplinary works, celebrating the physicality of touch and engaging new dialogues around queer sensuality and sexuality. They hinge on a sense of intimacy and desire, the deliciously edible and the grotesque.
A Bunch of artists, inviting unexpected encounters, proposing different modes of interaction within and beyond the gallery space.
BUNCH, Friday 25th November-Sunday 18th of December 2022, PV: Friday 25th November 5-8pm, Hotel Michele, 231 Northdown Rd, Margate, CT9 2PJ
