Moving below the surface current and in a different direction, the subterranean emotion is held carefully under the surface, as the understated surface half reveals and half-conceals the turmoil beneath.†
When prevailing discourses tip towards hyperbole, generalisations or simplification, there is a need to
swim against the current, to carve out a space that allows for ambiguity, correspondence, and a quieter
voice. In the employment of few words, a scale of action or use of minimal materials, understatement
can be both a way of confronting moments of crisis, or of evading them. Undertow brings together a
group of artists working in dialogue around these concerns. The Undertow research group's remit is
open, as is the shape it takes, and the work is rooted in the sensibilities of material and material
understanding. Our practices span the use of text, ceramics, wood, paper, paint, film, photography.
This exhibition is an opportunity to regroup, to re-open conversations and begin new ones, to test
ideas in the absence of pre-conceived outcomes, but with purpose and direction. What emerges in the
work coalesces around language, data, codes, a collapsing of scale, of how a still surface half-reveals,
half-conceals subterranean undercurrents.
†. Michael O’Neil, and Madeleine Callaghan, (editors), ‘Situated Sequences and Marginal Voices’, in Twentieth Century British and Irish Poetry: Hardy to Mahon, 2011
Alison Rees
Lauren Ilsley
Nicholas Middleton
Sarah Wishart
Tana West
Unit 1 Gallery
1 Bard Road, London W10 6TP
3rd-25th March 2023
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm
Private view, Thursday 2nd March 6-9pm
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