Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Catherine Bertola: "Isobar" Fieldgate Gallery, London UK



Private View: Friday, 19th Oct 2007, 6 - 9 pm
Exhibition continues 20th Oct - 11th Nov 2007
Open: Fri, Sat, Sun, 1.00 - 6.00

curated by Gaia Persico
Isobar is a temporary and variable line; it surveys contemporary drawing practice, constantly fluctuating between media. It breaks away from the preconceptions of drawing as a solely two dimensional medium and transmigrates onto three dimensional objects: furniture, computers, travel guides, books, light bulbs, fabrics, plants and pieces of fruit. Works are selected for their use of quotidian objects, fragile materials and precarious sources.

The drawn is often defined by the use of mutable and ethereal media, it decomposes and changes over time, its traces and residues becoming the focus of attention; light and movement traced in the air become palpable materials, dust particles describe climatic cataclysms 
and suggest memories.

The thrown away is covered in coveted and 'valuable' doodles and the recycled becomes an artistic source, revealing an ambivalent relationship with the constant consumption of contemporary life. Paper, typically constrained to being just a supporting surface, becomes the 
drawing itself.

The line becomes a moving image to record fleeting moments, no longer frozen on a sheet of paper but a recreation that has become alive, mutated by the digital in endless possibilities of variations. Drawing that may be easily missed by an inattentive viewer claim back from the 
public the time taken for its conception, and underline the importance of being observant of our surroundings.

Isobar brings to the fore artists expressions which question the nature of drawing itself, testing our perceptions of what is 'the drawn', so that the world and the everyday may be perceived with renewed curiosity and enhanced awareness.