Nothing is Forever : exhibition

Supported by a residency at the South London Gallery (SLG), the research project questions how the focus on the mechanical quality and materiality of procedure of the indexical mark sits in relation to the domestic space of the SLG’s new extension. Previous research questioned how the use of a semi-automatic process – contingent mark-making through the use of a hand crafted squeegee – could set up a distance between artist and outcome. This process explored repetition and difference which – when ordered by the grid – set up relation and dialogue between abstract painting, pattern and decoration, disseminated through exhibitions at Laure Genillard, London, One in the Other, London, De Mach and Solbiati, Milan (1999- 2004) . The results from the enquiry of Nothing is Forever employed an iterative process derived from using the more ephemeral mark offered by the fluidity of watercolour and the parameters of a printed brush mark. With reference to mathematical structures of nature, the work explores how the fluid and ephemeral nature of a printed watercolour mark interprets and challenges the rigidity of geometry and its heroicised narrative in abstract painting’s recent history. The work presents a series of interventions that continue to resist making a representation of something in the world, so that the matter and nature of production is a mode of address and site of critical thinking.