Artists: Jonathan Baldock, Pauline Bastard, fleuryfontaine, Holly Hendry, Jessie Makinson, Fani Parali, Morgan Wills
Exhibition title: Hyper Mesh
Curated by: Alice Bonnot
Venue: Assembly Point, London, UK
Date: January 18 – February 23, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Assembly Point, London
Assembly Point is delighted to present Hyper Mesh, a group show curated by Alice Bonnot. The exhibition brings together new work from eight international artists; Jonathan Baldock, Pauline Bastard, fleuryfontaine, Holly Hendry, Jessie Makinson, Morgan Wills and Fani Parali.
Comprising of painting, sculpture, moving image and performance, the exhibition explores contemporary notions of identity, and sets out to examine how identity structures could be re-imagined or reconstructed.
Hyper Mesh takes the concept of “Mesh” in relation to the theories developed by eco-theorist and philosopher Timothy Morton (1), who pioneered the principle of interconnected systems in life forms (2). Morton’s research proposes that beings of different kinds including human, animal, vegetable and mineral are connected and coexist within the same network structures – a mesh that is infinite and beyond concept.
Inspired by the idea of an interconnected network, Hyper Mesh offers multiple interpretations of identity, from the geological to the administrative, the personal to the global.
Collaborative artists fleuryfontaine address the limits of the flag as a symbol of identity using silicone tinted with pigments. Pauline Bastard questions the construction of the self and the credibility of the administrative mazes that we navigate on a daily basis. Showing for the first time in the UK will be a three-screen presentation of her digital work “Alex”.
Approaching the subject through the fictional or the fantastic, Fani Parali’s newly commissioned performance ‘Angels like Buildings’ creates gender-fluid identities that encompass Greek mythology and folklore; Jessie Makinson new works evokes contemporary ideas of femininity mixed with cultural appropriation, using multi layered landscape imagery; Jonathan Baldock’s sculptures playfully revisit the values of the mask by revealing characteristics of today’s societal vices; through painting Morgan Wills interrogates issues related to the formation of the self, using the human figure to continually abstract and distort preconceived ideas about the formation of the body; Holly Hendry’s sculptures speculate on the remains or ‘evidence’ of human identity in the geologic strata that will characterise the Anthropocene.
