Adam Gordon, Alan Miller, Andrew Stahl, Clémentine Bruno, Derek Jarman, Jennifer Packer, Marley Freeman, Sean Steadman, Sebastian Jefford, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Tenant of Culture, Vincent Fecteau
Gubbinal, co-curated with Sean Steadman
PNI, London
Installation View
Gubbinal, 2019
Project Native Informant, London
Alan Miller
Studio Window with Pink Fan
1979
Oil on canvas
86 x 64 1/8 x 1 5/8 in
218.4 x 162.9 x 4.1 cm
Marley Freeman
At the Office
2017-2019
Oil on linen
31.9 x 26.7 cm
12 5/8 x 10 1/2 in
Clémentine Bruno
Two Passerby
2019
Oil on plywood and traditional gesso
24.1 x 18.1 x 2.9 cm
9 1/2 x 7 1/8 x 1 1/8 in
Adam Gordon
Untitled
2019
Oil on canvas, framed
46.36 x 60.96 x 4.7 cm
18 1/4 x 24 x 1 7/8 in
Sean Steadman
Bract
2019
Oil on canvas, framed
184 x 113.9 x 6 cm
72 1/2 x 44 7/8 x 2 3/8 in
Installation View
Gubbinal, 2019
Project Native Informant, London
Vincent Fecteau
Untitled
2015
Acrylic, wood and paper
22 x 21 x 10 cm
8 5/8 x 8 1/4 x 4 in
That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
That tuft of jungle feathers,
That animal eye,
Is just what you say.
That savage of fire,
That seed,
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad
-- Wallace Stevens, 'Gubbinal' in Harmonium, 1923
GUBBINAL considers two opposing stances. The cosmic, foundational and mysterious at loggerheads with lassitude and retreat. Wallace Stevens, who favours a Heraclitus-type balance in his work, is drawing out the playing field produced by the imagination’s friction with abnegation.
Stevens recognises the redemptive power of the imagination. He presents it as a portal of hyper-connectivity and openness, one that dissolves the bondage of nihilism and scientism. In many ways GUBBINAL is making a case for arts sceptical aptitude, a re-evaluation of the common sense thinking which inhibits the world from becoming radically mixed up and groundless. Stevens’ ‘strange flower the sun’ and ‘animal eye’ oppose a worldview calcified for the sake of utility and taxonomy. His imagery is mysterious, scalable and open.
According to Socrates, ‘wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder'. Stevens poetry aligns with Socrates; it possesses humility through reflection on the qualitative aspects of experience. This is concurrent with painting, which Stevens loved, particularly Klee and Cézanne. Painting manifests rather than argues, what Francis Bacon liked to call ‘fact’.
All of the exhibited artists in their different ways relate to this spirit of inquiry, and their ability to produce worlds and at the same time give the feeling of interiority. Sebastian Jefford’s bulbous foam skins, puckered and clipped together on volumetric supports, are like artefacts from the nanoscale, blown up for inspection. Jennifer Packer’s phantasms, faces agog, dissolve into spandrels and roots. All the works are uniquely chimerical, slippery and ponderous, and focus on the imagination.
Project Native Informant and Sean Steadman thanks the participation of the artists and the support of Amanda Wilkinson, The Perimeter, Greengrassi, Karma, Chapter NY, Corvi-Mora, Gianni Manhattan and the Estate of Alan Miller | Jake Miller.