Centre for Recent Drawing presents Abandoned by a Third Dimension, a exhibition of contemporary artists George Charman, Benjamin Jenner, Lene Shepherd and Viktor Timofeev, whose work has in common the use of drawing modes familiar to architectural representation.
These artists allow us to glimpse a world where the instructional, technical use of drawing conventionally used to illuminate space and possibility short-circuits its own logic. The viewer is left to negotiate a universe, whose internal logic is regulated by quasi-maquette and flatness, abandoned by a third dimension. The drawings play with modernist architectural design reference, often providing vertiginous experiences that force contradictions in function and form. These drawings resist the conventional articulation the space of architectural rendering whilst offering a platform for the conception of multiple modes of existence.
George Charman examines the architectural model's position between an imagined space and real structure, in relation to his belief that interpretation of reality is based on an assumption of likely outcomes. Through the manipulation of line, perspective, surface and depth, Charman creates models that aim to disrupt the viewers’ interpretation of reality.
The drawings of Benjamin Jenner often appear to function as architectural plans in support of a real structure, that fundamentally suggest dimensions and scale. For Jenner, establishing scale is the first step to determining function. Unknown scale halts the images ascension to the real world. Instead his drawings act to destroy an illusion of space - flattening their ground. The drawing becomes it own ultimate realisation.
Shepherd creates images that seek to blur boundaries between tangible and imagined space. Her drawings act as diving boards from which imagination leaps into the depths of spatial possibility. The potential proliferates in the mind with no need to be realised in three dimensions. Shepherd hopes this will act to encourage the viewer to investigate and understand their own spatial situation.
Timofeev often invokes an element of irrupted observation in his work, suggesting the impossibility of the maintaining the architecture's integrity. His recent work involves the delicate and careful rendering of architectural models he has constructed and then damaged. The architectural object is transubstantiated as still life, attendant on obsolescence and decay.
Please join us for the opening reception for this exhibition 6 - 8pm 6 November 2008 or during the exhibition 7 - 28 November 2008. Centre for Recent Drawing is open from 12 - 6pm Wednesday to Friday during exhibition times at 2 - 4 Highbury Station Road, Highbury Islington London. C4RD is Registered UK Charity 1123530 and would particularly like to acknowledge the support for this exhibition of ARTUPDATE.COM/.
Centre for Recent Drawing
2-4 Highbury Station Road LONDON N1 1SB
Wed-Fri 12-6 (Highbury/Islington tube/rail)
Registered Charity No. 1123530