Group Exhibition: Perhaps We Should Have Stayed at Warbling Collective at Hoxton 253, London

Black and White Chain Link, 2019, oil on board, 30x30cm and text piece ‘A Kiss’, 2019 are two pieces of work which were selected by curator Robyn Graham (Warbling Collective) to exhibit as part of the exhibition ‘Perhaps We Should Have Stayed’; a title ‘referencing a collective sensed experience felt within today’s political climate.’

A Kiss

A kiss; a kiss goodbye.
Xs and Exces,
An Ex; a dead-end,
Blockage, turn back, over and under and repeat.
Maybe we shouldn’t go, maybe turn back, return and try again.

This poem and the painting Black and White Chain Link are part of ongoing visual research into the form, function and feelings generated by everyday barrier materials. Selected by the Warbling Collective, the works are contemplations on the anxieties felt in this period of barriers, connections, disconnections and moments we take to understand our physical positioning in the contemporary environment.

Within Black and White Chain Link, painting was employed as a methodological tool, to draw into focus a sense of contemplation of a barrier material; a fabric of exclusion, or of breaking up free physical space. The process of aestheticizing the material in question pushes the focus onto the function it serves, in a seldom-noticed way in everyday physical space.

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Warbling is an artist-run, London-based curatorial project which began in June 2017 as an Instagram account curated by Robyn Graham featuring a selection of artworks which fit within a quieter aesthetic.

With the help of Vanessa Mosquera Cabanas and Onur Safak, Warbling formed an ever interchangeable and expanding group which is not tied by geography or background but by those who share a common subtle style or similarly gentle qualities within their work.

By organising group pop-up exhibitions around London showcasing international artists who have found Warbling through Instagram, slowly but surely it is creating a community of exhibiting artists who maybe might just by chance be following each other already.

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The works which featured in Perhaps We Should Have Stayed were part of ongoing visual and textual research into the form, function and contextual meanings underlying barrier materials.

Individuals desire to have control of the spaces that they use and the ways in which they connect and interconnect with their physical surroundings. Black and White Chain Link balances on the edge of inclusion and exclusion, and is ambiguous in terms of what is on the inside and what is designated as outside.

Black and White Chain Link stands as a metaphor for a dividing line, a breaker or a mode of space-splitting. It is this idea of the alteration or demarcation of space which this work points toward. The ways that we separate things, places, people and relationships is brought to the fore when one considers the painting and the short poem in tandem. My personal working process utilises the creation of short experimental texts to act as catalysts for the creation of painted works, and this process is brought to the fore with the publication of the poem as the introductory text for the exhibition.
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Exhibition Text:

Warbling is pleased to present Perhaps we should have stayed, an international group exhibition, curated by Robyn Graham, features works from emerging and established artists. The exhibition will run from 27 - 30 November, with a Private View Wednesday, 27 November, from 6 - 9pm. The exhibition includes sculpture, installation, photography, and painting.

Perhaps we should have stayed, a title referencing a collective sensed experience felt within today's political climate. The selected artist’s work alludes to a sense of space and conflicts simple existence with an experience of where we now are. Artists include, Kim Bartelt, Paula Baader, Ethan Caflisch, Nancy Constandelia, Mary Herbert, Alex Jones, Sara Juel Andersen, Graham Lister, Scott Licznerski, Claudia de la Mata, Zanny Mellor, Lizzie Munn, Kaveh Ossia, Joona Pakkanen, Alexandra Searle, Benjamin Terry, Philip Williams, Tom Wilmott and Maddalena Zadra.

Each artist oscillates between the act of being present and reacting to a place. Teetering on the edge of controlling an environment or being controlled by one. Exploring the atmospheric light, movement and, romanticism of it, focusing in on our own fragilities and the inner restraints that can be caused by a certain space.