Assembly Point is delighted to present Hyper Mesh, a group show curated by Alice Bonnot. The exhibition brings together new work from eight international artists; Jonathan Baldock, Pauline Bastard, fleuryfontaine, Holly Hendry, Jessie Makinson, Morgan Wills and Fani Parali.
Comprising of painting, sculpture, moving image and performance, the exhibition explores contemporary notions of identity, and sets out to examine how identity structures could be re-imagined or reconstructed.
Hyper Mesh takes the concept of “Mesh” in relation to the theories developed by eco-theorist and philosopher Timothy Morton (1), who pioneered the principle of interconnected systems in life forms (2). Morton’s research proposes that beings of different kinds including human, animal, vegetable and mineral are connected and coexist within the same network structures – a mesh that is infinite and beyond concept.
Inspired by the idea of an interconnected network, Hyper Mesh offers multiple interpretations of identity, from the geological to the administrative, the personal to the global.
Collaborative artists fleuryfontaine address the limits of the flag as a symbol of identity using silicone tinted with pigments. Pauline Bastard questions the construction of the self and the credibility of the administrative mazes that we navigate on a daily basis. Showing for the first time in the UK will be a three-screen presentation of her digital work “Alex”.
Approaching the subject through the fictional or the fantastic, Fani Parali’s newly commissioned performance ‘Angels like Buildings’ creates gender-fluid identities that encompass Greek mythology and folklore; Jessie Makinson new works evokes contemporary ideas of femininity mixed with cultural appropriation, using multi layered landscape imagery; Jonathan Baldock’s sculptures playfully revisit the values of the mask by revealing characteristics of today’s societal vices; through painting Morgan Wills interrogates issues related to the formation of the self, using the human figure to continually abstract and distort preconceived ideas about the formation of the body; Holly Hendry’s sculptures speculate on the remains or ‘evidence’ of human identity in the geologic strata that will characterise the Anthropocene.
Opening event performance times:
Angels like Buildings by Fani Parali
7pm and 8.30pm
1 Morton, T. (2011). ‘The Mesh’, Environmental criticism for the twenty-first century. ed. by Stephanie LeMenager and others (New York: Routledge, 2011). http://www.academia.edu/1046913/The_Mesh
2 Blasdel, A. (2018). ‘A reckoning for our species’: the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/15/timothy-morton-anthropocene-philosopher [Accessed 20 Dec. 2018].
Pauline Bastard (born 1982, lives and works in Paris) creates complex narratives developed through installations, films and sculptures containing and relating to her experiments. Through collaborations she generates with scriptwriters, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, she questions the construction of the self and its place in the contemporary world.
Jessie Makinson (born 1985, UK) utilises wall drawings that are borrowed from her works on paper. These drawings are made by randomly pooling ink and watercolour onto paper. When dry the surface acts as a structure for all things in the world of her drawings, suggesting a small animal, or a figure perhaps. From there the drawing grows outwards. With each shape, form, line, figure placed, the narrative will shift and be found in the act of making.Jonathan Baldock (born 1980, UK) works across multiple platforms including sculpture, installation and performance. With work often taking on a biographical form, he addresses the trauma, stress, sensuality, mortality, and spirituality around our relationship to the body and the space it inhabits.
Fleuryfontaine (live and work in Paris). Through installations, performances and digital pictures, artists Galdric Fleury and Antoine Fontaine, known as Fleuryfontaine, questions the interactions between man and its close environment, using information technologies as their field of investigation.
Fani Parali (born 1983, Greece, lives and works in London) creates situations where different medium components are choreographed together, often through directing and collaborating with performers. Her practice is focused on the formulation of identity beyond the body’s presence. Parali wants to create a sense of warmth, which can potentially be felt through the mediation of the voices she imagines and realizes.
Holly Hendry (born 1990, UK) is a British artist whose sculptures look at the back of things by dealing with the notion of the internal and the external. This can be applied to the body, display and production, architectural rear spaces and hidden bodily activities, or situations that are brought into view through specific objects, textures or forms. Morgan Wills (born 1992, UK) is a British painter who engages with the intangibility of imagery through conversational visual language, and employs elements such as informal quotation, repetition, colloquialism and word play. In doing so he attempts to address how this intangibility reflects the existential anxieties inherent to the creative process, and aims to learn more about the inextricably human preoccupation.
