Works LOCATION contact
31/05/23 - 27/06/23
Trace
Trace
31/05/23 - 27/06/23
Bryony Benge-Abbott~Fungai Benhura~JC Bright~Julian Jamaal Jones~Wes Mapes~Johanna Mirabel~Demetrius Wilson
Chilli Art Projects are excited to announce Trace, an ambitious group show across their two spaces which spotlights an exciting group of artists all exploring contemporary abstraction through a unique lens. Whilst stylistically disparate, all the artists have a distinct mode of working through which they explore and probe the subtleties and boundaries of painting today. A large number of the artists are interested in interrogating the support and ground itself, each in unique ways which positions their work somewhat between sculpture, tapestry and painting. Others in the show are process based, preferring to work in layers which hide or obscure a history of marks beneath the surface, resulting topographic compositions which are often on the boundary of abstraction and figuration.~~The heavy materiality of Fungai Benhura’s work has an instant impact - sitting at odds with Ashley Cole’s delicate, flowing forms and the soft, spongy nature of Julian J. Jones’s quilts. In all cases, we feel the weight and presence of the support itself, with Benhura’s thick application of detritus, paper, glue and paint exploring gravity in a very different way to the loose, collaged fabric forms of Ashley Cole or Jones’s expressive patchwork. The notion of layering is something explored throughout the show, with Bryony Benge-Abbott’s stratified, gestural canvases developing slowly over months of tweaking and reworking - the human form slowly disintegrating into an organic, amoebic landscape. Meanwhile Johanna Mirabel’s figures bleed into their surfaces and surroundings, reduced to seductive washy compositions that explore chance, architecture, abstraction and the figure. Likewise, Demetrius Wilson’s abstractions were previously rooted in figuration, yet this new body of works pushes the boundaries of material and surface resulting in raw, emotional and expressive abstract compositions. Like Benhura, Cole and Jones, he works on unique supports such as table cloths and waffled fabric to achieve a unique range of marks and effects. The glowing red tones compliment Wes Mapes’s warm, energetic, multifaceted compositions which appear somewhat like windows, echoing the diverse and multifarious nature of his practice as a whole, which encompasses painting, sculpture, installation and performance. This window form is echoed in the work of JC Bright, whose gridded compositions draw comparisons to stained glass. Bright rethinks traditional notions of religious symbolism and the cross to pay homage to his relationship with his mother.~~Bryony Benge-Abbott’s intricate, flowing abstractions develop in layers over a series of months. Reflecting on ancestral memories held within landscapes, as well as contemporary dialogues concerning our human relationship to nature, Benge-Abbott crafts lush, delicate organic forms that extend across the surface of the canvas. Working intuitively, engaging her senses, she begins each work with the art historical tradition of painting en plein air - absorbing sight, sound, touch and motion to develop paintings that express an embodied response to the natural world. The majority of her works in the show reflect on the significance and grandeur of the Silk Cotton tree, experienced first hand during recent trips to Trinidad. Ultimately, Benge-Abbott explores both the joy of nature as well as the grief of its loss. At its core the work reckons with our own mortality, in the context of the rapidly developing nature crisis - no matter how hard we try, ultimately we return to the land.~~Fungai Benhura’s delicate yet frantic layered works on canvas are built up through a billboard-like layered application of found objects, paper, glue and paint. This process results in a unique blend of painting and sculpture, which allows the materiality of the paint to push against the metallic nature of the detritus used. As a result, Benhura’s works have a heavy presence - each scar and rupture on the surface reveals a history of marks within the works, which develop over months. These works have a topographic and in places almost archaeological feel, riffing on the notion of globalisation and exploration.~~JC Bright’s lattice-like compositions function as shrines paying homage to the artist’s relationship with his mother. With an education specialising in Art History and Painting as his grounding, Bright riffs on the work of Piet Mondrian and Abstract Expressionists such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline to develop a unique method of repetition utilising both conscious and subconscious.~~Ashley Cole’s layered, soft collages are pictorial images of her own subconscious. Cole’s process is very organic and largely unplanned, with her intuition and energy guiding her as she creates. Through her work, she explores her own past with the aim to uplift and inspire, particularly through her use of colour and texture. The subtle scrawls throughout bring to mind the gestural mark making of Twombly, whilst the physical presence of the canvas echoes Sam Gilliam’s monumental drapes.~~Julian Jamaal Jones’s contemporary quilts interrogate the divide between craft and high art, with Jones’s loose mark making punctuating the surface throughout the work. Choosing to communicate through the historical language of African American quilting, he implements abstract forms and vibrant colours to open a conversation around his Black experience. Working in a number of stage across a range of media including drawing, sculpture and textile, he memorialises Black culture through his own unique perspective. His process usually starts with abstract sketches responding to moods, Hip-Hop, Jazz or Bible verses. These sketches are then printed on to a variety of fabrics and surfaces to be re-collaged into his quilts, with the final works appearing somewhat multilateral - reflecting on Jones’s own nuanced identity.~~Wes Mapes engages in a diverse practice that unites painting, sculpture, installation, musical composition and performance. Mapes creates space-encompassing multipartite works that encourage his audience to reflect and contemplate. His works draws inspiration from a vast pool of influences ranging from post-colonial theory, alternative history models, mathematics, vernacular building and modern architecture and question of Pan-African identity. In his works exists an interesting tension between loose, washy mark making and thicker impasto application drawing attention to the surface, with the works taking on an almost window like quality in places.~~Johanna Mirabel’s beautiful, serene scenes collapse space to reflect on architecture and our relationship with our environment. By adjusting perspective throughout, Mirabel creates flattened and somewhat peculiar scenarios which allow her gestural hand to take centre stage - effortlessly shifting between abstraction, expressionism, and realism. Inspired by Glissant’s Creolisation, Mirabel looks to create a feel of constant motion, in which the characters are embedded, nested, and ready to merge in their moving environment. The artist invites us to inhabit her work, mentally exploring these parallel realities which slide between abstraction and figuration, looseness and tightness, softness and sharpness.~~Demetrius Wilson’s work stems from a place of personal biography and collectively shared experience. Finding both moments of stillness and activity, his work constantly adapts while it moves through pockets of the whole. Flirting with the idea of location, there is a feeling of impermanence and abstraction in Wilson’s paintings, while the colours and materials used in the work tell stories of figures and landscapes that have yet to be concretised or revealed. Wilson describes his paintings as working through a process of displacement, and is interested in how time can be handled. His paintings do not take on the task of blending time, specifically past and present, but rather distort it so to challenge one’s visual field and comprehensive capacity to identify breaks in time. Having shifted from a primarily figurative style of painting to abstraction in late 2021, Wilson often alludes to figures in the titles of his works, but more rarely in the actual composition.
Johanna Mirabel
Living Room N°41, 2023. ~~Oil on canvas. 214x163 cm
Ashley Cole
Mathematical Abstraction, 2023. ~~Acrylic, oil pastel on wood. 38x27cm.
Bryony Benge-Abbott.
Dance of the Silk Cotton, 2022. ~~Acrylic, ink, spray paint on canvas. 180x120cm.
Wes Mapes
Buying Back Our Godhood At Triple The Price (Black Picture Of Christ), 2021-23. ~~Mixed media on canvas. 100x70cm.
Demetrius Wilson
Stared Into the Sun and Spilled my Drink, 2023. ~~Spray paint on waffle cloth fabric. 86x122cm.
Fungai Benhura
Untitled, 2023. ~~Acrylic, paper, glue on canvas. 100x120cm.
JC Bright
Monuments in Honor of Nwanyi Mbaise, Painting No. 6, 2023. ~~Oil and acrylic on canvas. 200x180cm.
Julian Jamaal Jones
United in Grief (Kendrick Lamar), 2023. Fiber/quilt. 142x180cm.
Chilli
1 Adelaide Road, Chalk Farm
London, NW3 3QE
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