Lack

Opening: Thursday 27 October, 6:30-8:30pm
Show runs: 28 October – 3 December
Opening Hours: Fridays and Saturdays 2-6pm and by appointment
Finissage Event: Book launch on 3 December, 4-6pm

SE8 Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Lack by British artist Jamie George which introduces a group of new sculptures. Over the past decade, his practice has explored enactments of loss and breakage, be this in the making processes of the work or the personal and cultural narratives explored in the work. Casting is a key process in his sculpture, embedding and transforming reclaimed cultural and personal materials, while writing remains a fundamental aspect of his practice. Though perceived as distinct disciplines, the artist nevertheless emphasizes the link between shaping material and writing or editing text, using gestures of reduction or stripping away.

Lack, a series of wall-based cast plaster works originating from the iconic design of an Ikea float shelf, also titles the exhibition. The work denotes loss of function and a breakdown in the surface through vandalism and wear from handling. By hanging the shelves vertically from the gallery walls the artist signals the passage from use-value to display-value, moving from the consolation of purpose to the uncertainty of representation.

The architecture of the gallery serves as a testing ground for the artist’s interventions. Plaster rods and arches are bracketed together with scaffolding clamps, bisecting the room, an arrangement that is echoed by a related work in the external yard, drawing attention to the subtle distinctions between inner and outer space. Cracks and fissures in the surface of the individual plaster elements reveal tightly wound pieces of coloured fabric that further destabilise the structural integrity of the fragile sculptures.
The exhibition is completed by works from the Magazine relief series, comprising resin sheeting material derived from silicone casts of waste, aggregated over time from the artist’s environs and personal life, and then compressed into strata.
For the artist the doubling action of casting might be said to chime with the writer’s use of referencing or quotation, seeking kinship with things that already have a place in the world – though such actions also extend the distance between an original and its remembrance, emphasizing a process of entropy.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication on the project with texts by the artist and the curators, which will be launched at the finissage on Saturday the 3rd of December.