BALTIC 39, High Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1EW
Tom and Simon Bloor, Alfred Boman, Fiona Curran, Daniel Eatock, Steven Emmanuel, Johannes Evers, Nadine Feinson, Tommy Grace & Kate Owens, Albert Irvin, Ewan Jones-Morris, Peter Lamb, Andrew Maughan, Paul Merrick, Flore Nove-Josserand, Ciara Phillips, Mike Pratt, Dave Sherry, Adam Shield and Thomas Whittle.
Curated by Matthew Hearn & Thomas Whittle
RIFF/T is a two part exhibition about painting, abstraction, representation and their respective expanded fields. Divided into two sequential parts, the works presented focus upon the opposing themes of the harmonious RIFF, and discordant RIFT. Utilising a range of media that reference, mimic and push both ideas particular to painting, and the processes of painting itself, RIFF/T seeks to highlight particular trends, facets and approaches particular to the medium, now.
RIFF explores a sense of fluency and unity found in abstraction. Within the works in the exhibition, rhythm and abstraction converge in a choir of repeating marks, stock images, signature forms and colours. The exhibition installation seeks to evoke a holistic RIFF, a curatorial orchestration in which the individual signatures and marks echo and repeat between the works on show.
Amidst traces of the previous exhibition RIFT amplifies a sense of rupture and re-composition. Highlighting processes of vandalism and corruption within the works on show, RIFT gives credence to error, accident and chance. Referencing art history and popular culture, altering imagery and changing surface details, the idea of representation is opened up to new abstracted possibilities.
RIFF/T follows on from a recent collaboration between Hearn, Trend and Whittle under the moniker of The Hang Gang during an AA2A residency at Northumbria University culminating in The Hang Gang presents RIP, 36 Lime Street Gallery, July, 2013.
