Mad with poetry,
I stride like Chikusai
into the wind.
—Basho
This exhibition brings together a selection of recent works by five artists from Poland, France, the United States and Australia. In these works, keys, plants, bows, fabric, bones, insects, cells, moths, glass heads and architectural details proliferate. Paint reacts with water and wax. Heat fuses glazes and burns away fabric doused in plaster. Textures are mottled and papers are foxed. Forms are ossified, eroded and organic — some, clearly broken. Colours vibrate — sometimes damp, sometimes saturated and radiant. Images emerge in strange, disquieting spaces.
These works are skeleton passages in five minds attempting to make sense of chaos. They highlight a commitment to material experimentation as a means of locating images. Surfaces are wandered over or attacked by hand to capture the first instance of a question or thought. Images are constructed rather than duplicated. In some instances, studies take precedence over the resolved image. Motifs emerge in the search for forms that are both new and in conversation with art of the past. This is work that comes to us in fragments. Time has slowed.
We can peer under these five windows and find hundreds more. Titles are changeable. Answers sail away. The iterating continues, fragile and endless.
—Mary MacDougall, 2024
Paul Bonnet (b. 1990, France) is a painter and musician living and working in Paris. Past exhibitions include Abeyance at Mamoth, London; Homesick at Shiver Only, Paris; Common Task at Edouard Montassut, Paris; and Silhouette by a Dumpster at Real Positive, Cologne. He has performed as one half of CIA Debutante at Cafe Oto, London; Cave12, Geneva; and Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels.
Jana Hawkins-Andersen (b. 1989, Australia) is an artist living and working on Gadigal and Wangal land. She creates installations using found objects, organic matter and discarded textiles, combining these with ceramic based sculptures and assemblages. She completed her MFA at UNSW Art and Design and is currently an artist educator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and is a co-organiser of Suite 7a, an alternative arts platform.
Mary MacDougall (b. 1983, Australia) lives and works in Naarm. Her practice spans painting, drawing, photography, writing, music and archival research. She has presented two solo exhibitions previously at ReadingRoom, and a two-person show with Joan Jonas. Mary has also exhibited widely in artist-run-spaces, and produced a number of artist books in collaboration with designer Nicholas Weltyk. Warm Currency, her music project with artist MP Hopkins, has performed locally and internationally, and will soon release a new LP on Horn of Plenty records. Mary is represented by ReadingRoom.
Nikholis Planck (b. 1987, USA) is based in New York City. While primarily focused on painting and drawing, his work also spans publications, sculpture, and performance. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions at commercial and non- commercial spaces including Magenta Plains, New York; 14a, Hamburg; Green Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn; Signal Gallery, Brooklyn; Neo Chrome, Torino; Kerry Schuss Gallery, New York; Evening Hours, New York; and Insect, Los Angeles.
Mateusz Woś (b. 1994, Poland) graduated from the Polish National Film School in Łódź (PWSFTViT) with a photography major. Currently residing in Gdynia, he creates music, drawings, paintings and photography. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions at the Polish National Film School and the National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. In 2022 he released the album Muzeum Historii Naturalnej as Samutek on the London-based label Horn of Plenty.
Contact office@areadingroom.com to register interest, or for further information.
Mary would like to thank Sofia, Olivia, Edward, Jana, Paul, Mateusz, Nikholis, Alex, Ryan, Gabriel, Ivan, Henry, Tim and Tom.