ARTIST TALK
Saturday 6 July 2pm
In his current exhibition, Footnotes for a Chaotic Garden, Simon Perry invites the viewer to experience and contemplate the space between the shadowy atmospheres and protean apparitions of his recent ink drawings, and the formal, dynamic and visceral characteristics of a new collection of bronze and steel sculptures. Both the ink drawings and the sculptures offer a glimpse into the intricate web of imagination and exploration that defines Perry’s practice and build upon his interest and knowledge in the history of ideas and sculptural practice, alongside contemporary approaches to materiality.
The works depict a series of ruptures and accretions: The skin between order and chaos, interior and exterior. The boundaries of the body and the boundaries of the garden, the thinning of the skin where things can no longer be contained, experiences that are unsayable, and revelations just below the threshold of legibility and interpretation, all interweave and are activated by the viewer. The repeated hand motif referencing the votive symbol of Sabazios, the geological and anatomical formations, the indecipherable texts, and the interplay of atmospheric conditions, all speak to Perry’s interest in the intersection of time, space and being. Perry’s ambition for the exhibition is to provide an improvised and embodied ground to support the emergence of new ideas, readings, and experiences.
