Part III: Interiority

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON presents the third in a trilogy of interconnected exhibitions, representing a collection of survey shows investigating the city, landscape and interiors.

‘Part III: Interiority’ features nine artists from Ireland, Poland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. The notion of interiority arose from identifying an aspect within each of the artist’s wider practices, and the exhibition seeks to reveal the psychological aspect of the interior view, as if the representation of a physical interior can be used to decode the interior mind of the artist and audience.

An interior place must define itself by the presence and absence of objects and people; its architectural aspect; and its relation to the exterior. Conscious and unconscious drives are revealed by the subject portrayed, and its condition. Additionally, what is left in, and what is left out, reveal elements of identity, beliefs, desires and philosophical or political preoccupations.

The stark compositions of David Haughey and Lee Maelzer use absence and the moribund to suggest previous or pending presence. Abandoned places and deteriorating objects denote the passing of time, as does Emma Bennett’s deployment of the memento mori, whilst also suggesting longing, love and desire.

Tom Ormond’s complex compositions are also without human presence. Real places are re-imagined as exploding environments that are in an ongoing state of flux, growth, decline and disorder. Michal Mraz also employs the architectural to devastating effect. Populated interior views combine abstraction and figuration with disrupted scale, form and surfaces to pose questions about politics, power and consumerism.

Figuration is employed in various guises throughout the exhibition. John Stark adroitly combines the political with mythological and draws special attention to separation from the exterior, when viewed from the interior. Marcin Cienski creates dramatic, foreboding paintings that call to mind the interior world of dreams or nightmares. Kiera Bennett and Sara Berman, on the other hand, abstract the figure to the point where it assimilates with its surroundings. Bennett uses Modernist tropes to suggest artists at work or rest in the studio, whereas Berman utilizes pattern and form to fuse the subject with the environment and objects within.

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