‘A Small Dent in the Air’ & ‘Percept/Pathos’
Grove Collective is a reliable constant for showcasing esteemed, young artists working today, with ‘A Small Dent in the Air’ running online in April, featuring Lucie Gray and Shailee Mehta, and Colm Mac Athlaoich’s solo exhibition being held in their Battersea space during May. Made in Bed’s Reviews Editor Olivia Wilson reflects on the two exhibitions, the latter of which tackles a subject matter distinctive from Grove’s previous exhibitions, which focused principally on our bodies and the spaces they inhabit.
Previously: ‘A Small Dent in the Air”
London-based Lucie Gray and Mumbai-based Shailee Mehta both rearrange reality according to their own terms. Their fantastical and lucid scenes are populated by intimately familiar human forms. This personal familiarity with the body underpins Grove Collective’s previous group exhibition ‘A War With No Winner’ and is re-iterated in ‘A Small Dent in the Air’, referencing breath itself, human beings’ lifeline.
Mehta’s paintings, subversive and grotesque, intrigue. Her figures are engaged in all manner of activities, none of which are entirely obvious to the viewer. A woman lulls on the floor post-shower, whilst another tugs on her tongue: not the most conventional of pastimes. Yet, it is precisely this absurdity that makes her paintings so delightful.
Shailee Mehta, Hairy Knottings/ Post-Shower Lethargy, 2020. Source: grovecollective.co.
Shailee Mehta, Nazar-Battu, 2021. Source: grovecollective.co.
When one encounters Mehta’s works selected for ‘A Small Dent in the Air’, one feels privy to a moment of intimacy, an intruder. The same can be said of Lucie Gray’s works: we are trespassing on moments of closeness and seclusion that should not be witnessed by outsiders.
Lucie Gray, The Postman’s Wife, 2020. Source: grovecollective.co.
Focusing on womanhood, Lucie Gray seeks out the simplest and rawest ways of communicating a narrative. Her works tell profound stories of despondency, obsession, unrequited love, desire: all formidable human emotions. There is a naiveté in her depiction of women, harking back to the Fauvists and their adopted colour palette of rich, warm, earthy tones. The crudeness of her chosen medium, acrylic on canvas, effectively communicates this. Gray confesses the importance of colour in her work, stating it enables her to depict anger, heat, vibrancy, and significantly, the swell of emotions that courses through her blood.
There is a simple playfulness in the work of both Mehta and Gray, and this is precisely why they work so well together. Unfiltered, unconventional depictions of women, ‘A Small Dent in the Air’ probes us to contemplate being human, consider the joy found in simplicity and recognise the beauty of our natural forms.
Currently: “Percept/Pathos”
Colm Mac Athlaoich’s solo exhibition ‘Percept/Pathos’ marks a divergent style of exhibition from Grove Collective’s former iterations. Notions of materiality, process and perception overtake an exploration of the physical self, which has formed the basis of Grove’s previous exhibitions this year. Mac Athlaoich’s work sits between figuration and abstraction, working from source material. The source material that inspires ‘Percept/Pathos’ is exact: black and white photos of Ellis Island arrivals at the turn of the last century. Mac Athlaoich then colorises these black and white photos, prints them before photographing them again and uploading them onto social media. Extending on from this chain of production, Mac Athlaoich then renders the images in paint, distorting their original forms and imbuing them with a new life.
Colm Mac Athlaoich, Huge Courage to Immigrant_1. Source: instagram.com/macathlaoich.
Displayed alongside these eight works are several of Mac Athlaoich’s sketches, providing a deeper insight into the processes of his practice. The final artworks have little resemblance to the preparatory sketches, demonstrating the length of abstraction.
Abstraction is the re-telling of an image, whether still representative or not. The re-telling of a story is never perfect, intricacies missed out - much like the abstraction of an image it is warped. ‘Percept/Pathos’ tackles precisely this, aiming to address and query our ways of seeing. The titular reference to ‘pathos’ derives from the Stoic use of the word, as appealing to emotions, whilst ‘percept’ is to be understood as how one explores these abstracted images, especially when confronted with sketches revealing the original images.
Colm Mac Athlaoich, Huge Courage to Immigrate 2, 2021. Source: grovecollective.co.
In sum, the profound works on display in both ‘A Small Dent in the Air’ and ‘Percept/Pathos’ are testament to Grove’s innate ability to stage poignant exhibitions, playing around in your mind long after you leave.
‘A Small Dent in the Air’ ran online from 23rd - 30th April, but is still available to view on their website. ‘Percept/Pathos’ is running in-person and online until 19th May 2021.
Reviews Editor, MADE IN BED
All images sourced from grovecollective.co.