Fine Things to be Seen

7 Aug-5 Sep 2010

Overview

Curated by Ben Street & Tom Juneau: Edwina Ashton, Karl England, Gabriel Hartley, Eleanor Morgan, Brian Sayers and Rose Wylie The title has been taken from the GK Chesterton poem 'The Rolling English Road'. The poem bends pragmatic spirituality to the ancient ballad; the mythic drunkard sees harbingers of the next life in this merry pastoralia. Inspired by this rambunctious energy, Fine Things to be Seen presents a bathetic pantheon built from intoxication and obsession. Eleanor Morgan finds cosmic order in the arachnid intricacies, and channels Set, Egyptian god of impotence, in her tortoise-headed god. Brian Sayers and Karl England focus on the ordinary objects that punctuate life, infusing the everyday with the clenched power of relics. Edwina Ashton’s wonky avatars look on mutely, while Rose Wylie’s protoplasmic sprites try to look casual in the face of dissolution. Gabriel Hartley’s warped, encrusted loops and fractals are as talismans from a future faith made of ancient modernism and circuit boards.