Flat Volume
Longworth-West, Sarah (2025) Flat Volume. APT Gallery. ISBN 978-1-7397317-5-5
Abstract
Abstract / Descriptive Statement (300 words max): FOREWARD ...UNAMBIGUOUS AFFECTION FOR THE PHENOMENAL TACTILITY AND IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE OBJECT WORLD – THE FEEL AND FLAVOUR OF THINGS.1 A large group exhibition of 41 works from 38 artists, aimed at contextualising ‘Flat Volume’ within contemporary painting. The concept of ‘Flat Volume’ was influenced by Paul Nash’s ‘Equivalents for the Megaliths’ 1935 and Phyllida Barlow’s wealth of painted ‘coloured drawings’.2 In a time when we are increasingly consumed by screens, the remit of the show is to highlight and absorb the physical forms and objects we are surrounded by and therefore also reinforce our relationships to our physical haptic environments; how we deal with the importance of ‘object-ness’ and question the values of form through painting. This selection of national and international artists all interrelate by their enduring preoccupation with how volume is conjured, achieved and explored through varieties of strategies, instincts and processes. These include: ONE Placement of Parts: absolute idiosyncratic specificity of placement. TWO Object(ness)/Form: desire for ‘solid’ forms – within the picture plane – alongside a pull to unusual structures. THREE Relief – concave/convex: the melding boundaries of painting and sculpture. FOUR Illusion of form or relief. These works bring to the forefront object/non-objects and, in doing so, enhance our attention upon the visual fundamentals but through slow(ed) viewing – within the dynamic ‘lived’ and arresting moments of the painting – which allows us to view and interrogate material culture and value systems; our relationship to them and ideally more consciously acknowledge them, however beguiling.
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit Item |