27th April – 30th June 2018
PV Thursday 26th April 6pm
Susan Collis’ latest exhibition for Seventeen is titled All this falling, and is divided into two parts.
The first room contains a series of drawings titled The centre cannot hold. These are made of blue inks on white paper that has been cut into intricate forms and attached directly to the gallery walls. Each piece describes the shape of a frayed, threadbare scrap of tarpaulin, hanging from a thick metal staple. No more than rags, the tarp seems dirty and weathered, as if a large sheet suspended across the room has eroded long ago. One twisted fragment has fallen to the floor.
The second body of work is a series of dense pencil drawings. Produced inside derelict buildings, soft pencil has been pressed hard over forgotten domestic surfaces. The wall rubbings have a slippery, undulating surface that bears the imprint of old woodchip wallpaper, brickwork and cracked tiles. Geometric shapes are traced out in white untouched lines, alluding to the structure of the now demolished rooms. The largest of the works, Remainder, hangs from floor to ceiling in two long strips of parallel paper. In titling the works, Collis perhaps alludes to a feeling of exposure or inadequate shelter, the drawings a record of a structures and surfaces that felt permanent but have now fallen.
Installation view of The centre cannot hold
Installation view of The centre cannot hold
Installation view of The centre cannot hold
Installation view of The centre cannot hold
The centre cannot hold (Upshot), 2018
Ink and pencil on paper, hallmarked platinum
120 x 90 x 11 cm (29 x 12 x 6 inches)
The centre cannot hold (Brought to light), 2018
Ink and pencil on paper, hallmarked platinum
96 x 46 x 10 cm (29 x 12 x 6 inches)
Detail of The centre cannot hold (Brought to light), 2018
Ink and pencil on paper, hallmarked platinum
96 x 46 x 10 cm (29 x 12 x 6 inches)
Detail of The centre cannot hold (Upshot), 2018
Ink and pencil on paper, hallmarked platinum
120 x 90 x 11 cm (29 x 12 x 6 inches)
Remainder, 2017
Pencil on paper
303 x 300 x 24 cm (119 ¼ x 118 x 9 ½ inches)
In search of an ending, 2018
Pencil on paper
125.5 x 140.5 x 7.5 cm (49 ½ x 55 ⅓ x 3 inches)
End in the beginning, 2018
Pencil on paper
122 x 159.5 x 7.5 cm (48 x 55 ⅓ x 3 inches)