AUSTIN EMERY - 'Expresstaneousmomenterialism'
18 - 25 March 2010
Acquire Arts, 155 Battersea Park Road, London, SW8 4BU
Private View - Thursday 18 March, 6.30pm
Acquire Arts Space presents the first solo exhibition of Canadian/British architectural stone carver-cum-"Blobbism" artist, Austin Emery. This exhibition will feature a selection of older and more recent sculptures and paintings which confront the physical and mental exploration of moment and material.
Having worked as an architectural stone carver for over a decade, on such buildings as Houses of Parliament, Royal Albert Hall, Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, Emery's new pieces are a departure from his earlier, more confined work. Flirting with the boundary between abstract and figurative, the artist's current works reek of his desire to free his mind of conscious thought and find resonance with the material.
Throughout the exhibition, viewers are afforded a rare opportunity to bear witness to the artist's journey to Blobbism - expression through blob, defined as an exploration of amorphous, irregular form and created spontaneously and freely without preconception. The artist's technical mastery of a medium is evident, as is his subsequent rejection of the confines the medium has imposed; at once, there is a simultaneous respect and retribution echoing throughout the works.
While Emery works with familiar media such as marble and stone in Dipsy Doodle, the forms themselves are an exodus from his purely figurative pieces. The artist twists and weaves the forms, bringing his comprehension and command of the abstract structure to the forefront. With SWET - made of Portland stone on found sandstone paving fragment from the Thames River - the artist manages to translate two-dimensional graffiti produced by an anonymous artist into a three-dimensional sculpture; Emery is creating his own, permanent ode to the transitory art created by graffiti artists.
In producing Gyzengals 41219 - made of Portland stone on reclaimed masonry - Emery displays an appreciation for the material's physical properties and historical context, as well as enters the realm of conceptual art. The same is true for Mearl, with its Freudian subtext - the work was created with mixed media, including among other media, stone dust, silicone rubber and screws on found wood.
Emery favours an interesting array of materials - each with its own value and suggested narration - such as sea grass, light-bulb fragments, re-claimed floor joists and bones. With the latter, the artist has created Fish Lady and Birdman which conjure up Giacometti's slender giants, albeit with perceptible gestures and motion.
With perhaps the three most autobiographical pieces, Burst, Fizz and Thaw, Emery establishes a complex dynamic between what was and what will be. The artist created the works using acrylic between cellophane and canvas - possible evidence of Emery's subconscious surfacing long enough to show us the suffocation the artist sometimes subscribed to as an architectural stone carver and is now expanding as an artist to create spontaneous works more true to his artistic inclinations.
For further press information and images please contact Austin Emery on 0775 983 4652 or austin@austinemery.com. Visit www.austinemery.com.
Acquire Arts
Open daily from 11 am - 6.30 pm
