Exhibition opening Thursday 13 January 2011
MARCH MARCH MARCH
Nicky Deeley, Joanna Peace, Lydia Whitmore
Drawers Gallery
(beneath The Haggerston)
438 Kingsland Road
London, E8 4AA
Private View: Thursday 13 January 18.30 – 21.00, with a party till late
Exhibition open 14 – 30 January 2011
“A symbol is the smallest unit of ritual which still retains the specific properties of ritual behaviour; it is a ‘storage unit’ filled with a vast amount of information” – Victor Turner, 1968
The three artists in this exhibition could be described as frustrated anthropologists. Sharing a passion for books on ritual, myth and costuming, they are on fraught quests for new belief systems beyond their own varied backgrounds.
Nicky Deeley is interested in the psychological and symbolic weight behind decoration, pattern and everyday objects. From a rural background in New Zealand, Nicky straddles both practicality and romanticism, creating seductive works that quietly unease the viewer.
Joanna Peace uses this exhibition to create an installation that re-imagines words and imagery collected during a residency in Mexico in early 2010. Joanna mobilises found symbols and traditions for personal ends, inhabiting and interrogating them in the search for human commonality and difference across time and space.
Lydia Whitmore has been working on one project for the past five years: TEN THOUSAND SOLDIERS is a slowly growing army of soldiers that Lydia is documenting. A4 portraits feature Generals and secret divisions, prisoners and captured enemies, and for this exhibition Lydia is building an altar to just one of these soldiers.
