i like the end again
Private View Thursday Jan 31st 6 - 8pm
January 31st to February 21st 2008
As part of our 2007 Open Show, Turbulence, we offered the prize of an exhibition at Surface Gallery for the two artists who submitted the two best pieces. i like the end again is an exhibition of new work by those two artists.
The exhibition features work in sculpture, drawing, video and photography. Many of the pieces function as a form of performative documentation of what has gone before - evidence of the artist embarking upon a task and seeing it through to some form of conclusion. When exactly they end and why is often unclear.
We find embedded within the work of both artists contradictions and knowing signs of futility, failure and repetition.
Nicola Pomery’s work is rooted in process. The very act of making - or sometimes un-making - a piece becomes the piece itself. Toying with the distinctions between object, action and documentation, she frequently works within a set of self-defined parameters, creating work through repetitive movements and actions – tying knots, attempting to imitate the movements of an insect through mark marking, marking a surface, stripping it away again, marking it again, only to strip it away again. The pieces become endless cycles of creation and destruction. Implicit within these acts are suggestions of frustration, neurosis and angst.
Creating comical, self-defeating ‘inventions’ and setting himself the task of systematically destroying objects in order to create artworks, Mark Selby identifies his work alongside the ceaseless over-production of western consumer society. While questioning and satirising ideas of how we seek fulfillment and create a sense of identity, Mark does not seek to critique from the position of an outsider, but implicates himself as a participant in this system.
Nicola Pomery is currently completing an MA in Fine Art at Byam Shaw, at Central St. Martins, London.
Mark Selby is currently completing an MA in Sculpture at Wimbeldon College of Art, London.
www.lostfunction.org
Events
As part of 'i like the end again', we held several events over the course of the exhibition. See below for further details.
Artists’ Talk
Wednesday 13th February, 2 - 4 pm.
Surface Gallery hosts an informal discussion of the work featured in i like the end again with Mark Selby and Nicola Pomery.