The Surface of Things

Fletcher, BA

Abstract

The Surface of Things, Manifest Festival, Manchester and Salford, 1st July - 12th August 2017, New Adelphi Gallery, University of Salford and PAPER Gallery, Manchester.


An exhibition/collaboration between PAPER, Manchester and Durden & Ray, Los Angeles and featuring artists Lisa Denyer, Frances Disley, EC, Brendan Fletcher, Roni Feldman, Jenny Hager, Sharon Hall, Vincent Hawkins, David Leapman, Mali Morris RA and Max Presneill.
In 1911 Piet Mondrian scribbled a note in his sketchbook, ‘The surface of things gives enjoyment; their interiority gives life’. Mondrian had yet to paint a purely abstract painting in 1911 but his absorption of the work of Cezanne, Picasso and Braque that year led him inexorably towards a pure abstraction in the years that followed. Mondrian, and the early abstract pioneers, Delauney, Kandinsky and Malevich et al rejected mimesis and a reproduction of the surface of things and sought meaning within or beyond the world of appearances.


100 years later and painters continue to explore the repertoire of forms, colours and gestures that mark out the lexicon of abstraction. They are concerned with exploring both the surface and its painterly slurries and the meaning inscribed in those marks and traces.


The Surface of Things is an exhibition of the work of established, mid-career and emerging artists all of whom believe passionately in the capacity of abstraction to offer a purposeful means of examining the world and our relationships, our exteriority and interiority and meaning beneath and beyond the surface of things.
They might well recognize the thoughts of another Modernist; the poet Wallace Stevens. In his 1919 poem, Of the Surface of Things, Stevens noted how we progress from a prosaic understanding of the world and its simple taxonomies and move toward a more imaginative and creative abstract vision. The artists in The Surface of Things demand as much.

Citation

Fletcher, B. (2017). The Surface of Things. 1 July 2017 - 12 August 2017. (Unpublished)

• Exhibition Performance Type: Exhibition
• Conference Name: The Surface of Things
• Conference Location: New Adelphi Gallery, University of Salford & PAPER Gallery, Manchester
• Start Date: Jul 1, 2017
• End Date: Aug 12, 2017
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2019
• Publisher URL: https://paper-gallery.co.uk/the-surface-of-things
• Related Public URLs: https://paper-gallery.co.uk/the-surface-of-things
• Additional Information: Corporate Creators : University of Salford, PAPER Gallery, Manchester, Durden & Ray, Los Angeles; Number of Pieces : 3