“curated by” has an air of authority, the weighty hand of history. a “curator” might take on the earnest responsibility of a custodian or caretaker whom must fix, hold carefully in place in order to protect. “organised by” perhaps then, may not be so officious; light of touch but pragmatic, an “organiser” might instead engage in gathering, arranging and responding, always to the present…
gathering salt, earth, natural fibers, water and pigments do i dare disturb the universe? shyly offers an exhibition of material richness. works by john ward knox, lauren winstone, melanie bell and poppy kural record small transformations of matter through processes of hardening, knotting, accumulating, pouring, dipping, folding, layering. a tentative question, do I dare disturb the universe? draws in or encircles around the edges, rims and residues of things. art, design and craft are not pitted against one another but are delicately aligned; practices connected through their relish for process and materials.
sitting obliquely on the far end of a simple bleached pine table is lauren winstone’s work, a not-quite vessel, speckled and creamy brown. a lip, an edge, a rim, folded in upon itself. her work has a precision, sitting assuredly on a footing that has almost been sliced right away. winstone displays a close attention to balance, to the particularities of clay tracing its shifting dimensions and weight during the processes of potting, bisque firing, glazing and firing once more
upon black tiles sits a small mountain of salt, tiny nodules accumulated to record a swift pouring; a downward flow. reportedly, in the human body the concentration of salt to water mirrors that of the ocean. placed upon the conical of salt is a bottle cap holding a stubbed out cigarette. bringing together substances that one might ingest, inhale or absorb, john’s work speaks of a consumption beyond nourishment; moments of calcification and dissolution that might take place when a cigarette releases thousands of intricate chemicals into the blood stream, or when it rains and rocks and mountains slowly dissolve into the ocean to make it salty.
cream and charcoal tentacles drip. in her work poppy kural brings together wool, mohair, cotton thread and raw cotton fabric folding these materials various thicknesses and textures together, one over another, bending time in rhythmic but hardly uniform motions. weaving like wandering has the potential to go in all directions, to grow amorphously. there is then, a space opened for never ending entanglings and unravelings.
melanie bell creates cockled papers by dipping them in water and leaving them to dry. at first glance the papers are inconsequential like mail left in the rain, but on closer inspection one might see the singularity in each, the small difference in details of formation. in the centre of one, a blush of pigment flowers across the page, holding a tinge, a feeling of wetness. scattered, or dropped in imperfect constellations upon the tiled floor there is both chance and alignment at play
as with the process of a weaver, works in do i dare disturb the universe? are gathered and organised, folded together only momentarily, into the form of an exhibition that grows, it’s edges spreading out into the world, always on the cusp of something else…
– georgina watson
