Like the Lines of a Hand

Exhibition dates: 18 November – 16 December 2017 Private View: Friday 17 November 2017, 6-9pm Exhibition at C4RD: 17 January – 8 February 2018

Daphne Astor/ Lewis Baxter/ Regine Bartsch/ Claire Blundell-Jones/ David Hancock/ Phil Goss/ Andrew Hewish/ Phill Hopkins/ Sean Kennedy/ Ilona Kiss/ Sharon Leahy Clark/ James Moore/ David Murphy/ Lyle Perkins/ Diana Taylor/ Ruby Tingle/ Hannah Wooll/ Simon Woolham   

‘The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning roads, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.’   
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (1972)
The title of the exhibition: ‘like the lines of a hand’, is taken from the novel Invisible Cities by Italian writer Italo Calvino, published in Italy in 1972. It is the starting point for a group of 18 UK based artists, chosen by PAPER and C4RD (Centre for Recent Drawing) in London.

Each artist chose a line, a brief passage, or a chapter title from the book, which explores layers of imagined and fictional vistas through the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo. The book itself consists of brief prose poems describing 55 fictitious cities but which are all actually just descriptions of one city, Venice.
The chosen pieces of text, highlighting the dialogue with Invisible Cities, acts as a discrete, non-linear curatorial discourse between the works in the exhibition by the chosen group of artists. The individual works in ‘like the lines of a hand’, often reference and play with the complexities of inventive language and narrative, explored in Invisible Cities.

Hannah Wooll
Something Among Us
ink on book page,
27x21cm
2017

Ilona Kiss
Seven Days
Oil on paper
35x25cm
2017

David Murphy
Untitled
Oil Crayon on Paper
38 x 28 cm (46 x 36 cm framed)
2015

Simon Woolham
Hollow Hill
biro on paper
30 x 42cm
2017

James Moore
Al Capone (Marco Polo) and Pai Mei (Kublai Khan) 1272AD
Oil on Paper
40 x 30cm
2017

Regine Bartsch
No Desire is Lost, Anastasia
graphite, ink, ballpoint pen and acrylic medium on gessoed rice paper
42x30 cm
2017

David Hancock
Desires are already memories (Isidora)
Watercolour on Paper
42 x 30cm
2017

Diana Taylor
Perhaps this garden exists only in the shadow of our lowered eyelids
Graphite, pen, collage and stitched cotton on pre-printed paper.
28 x 37cm
2017

Sharon Leahy Clark
‘OH’ the loss of the ego
Ink and Watercolour on Paper
24 x 27cm
2017

Sharon Leahy Clark
The fallible ‘I’ 
Ink and Watercolour on Paper
24 x 27cm
2017

Andrew Hewish
An uncomfortable tension in the modern
Graphite, ink, collage on paper
30 x 21cm
2016

Ruby Tingle
Hoof (Cities & The Dead)
Collage and snake skin on specialist paper
30 x 42 cm

Lyle Perkins
Ersilia
inkjet on watercolour paper
29.7 x 42cm
2017

Daphne Astor
Before/After
Ink and metallic marker on panel
30 x 35cm
2017

Phill Hopkins
An Awakening to a Brand New Nature [Chapter 9. Cities and the Sky]
Emulsion paint, gloss paint, spray paint, wood stain, varnish and communion wafers on found tracing paper
31.5 x 45 cm
2017

Lewis Baxter
Untitled residues
Oil, pigment, graphite, coloured pencil on paper
22 x 34cm
2017

Claire Blundell-Jones
Slug Daze (drawing 13) 
Ink, crayon and PVA
30 x 42cm
2016

Phil Goss
Dredged City
Watercolour on paper
2017

Sean Kennedy
We are so close, but so far apart
Pen on paper.
2 x 21cm x 29.7cm (29.7cm x 42cm)
2017