Starteld
Susanne Baumann
William GC Brown
Lu Chao
Izzy Kori
Yushi Li
Celia Mora
Liam Walker
Joe Fenwick Wilson
curator： Yiran Zhu
in collaboration with WARMBATH.ART
12th Dec 2024 – 18th Jan 2025
Opening 12th Dec 18:00 – 21:00
Susanne Baumann, works from the top are Memory of a touch I, II, III, 2023, sizes are the same as 20 x 20 cm, Oil on Canvas
‘Startled’ is a possible affect generated by the artwork and as such is an intensity or a discharge of sorts. It appears as a quality between the image and space. To experience the sensation of a startling image-space is to be interrupted in the act of perceiving it, when you are seized by it, rather than being in possession of a feeling of control. There is with this a sense of reversal that inaugurates such a sensation. It might even be the sensation of the image trembling, thus resisting definite location and in turn designation and naming.
There are many forms of space: smooth, striated, interrupted, continuous, dense, eruptive, floating, contemplative, fractured, expansive, but for aesthetic configuration to occur, there needs to be such a defined space for an event to take place. To talk of a body also implies a space, the body is always a body in space, and in more general terms, an image is the opening out of a distinct space to lend it dimensionality. Art can be said to be the conjunction of the mixing together of space, matter, image, and time in ways that might occasion surprise. This group exhibition presents different ways of examining a startling relation of space and image through various combinations of narrative. To startle is to arrest, or to create a surprise, which implies an intuitive collision of space, image and time.
Montage in cinema for example, is the art of arrest or collision which introduces the possibility of a new image or sensation to emerge. This can be close to an energetic charge, as much as a novel redistribution of images, but anyway, to startle is to break with habit whether it be optical or psychological. In the pursuit of redistribution, difference becomes possible, so to startle is to introduce the energetic component to it. This gives rise to figurations, arrangements of bodies, the look invested in seeing into something, hands reaching out, the charge discovered in fetishism, awkward bodily stances, all vying for attention. Art is a way of giving attention to how attention takes place, the nuances that provide fragments of attention, each event that might become exhibited as such, and that which startles in this process, serving as an arrest with this process of ciphering difference.
As spectators there is a pleasure in switching attention from one image to the next, noticing riddles, balancing offerings with withdrawals, discovering free play, lingering within interruptions, wondering and wandering amongst dense signage, retaining and losing sense. All such things might indicate minor events of difference, but they should never be set aside as being too minor. As an art historical aside, it is worth remembering how Dutch genre painting of the Baroque period drew attention to the smallest gestures within the everyday but did so in ways that enabled the dimension of the exquisite to reside within details of perception. Rather than the exquisite, we have. here instead fragments of excess, and with this, the desire to enter curious realms afforded within the second glance. If one was tempted to name the investment of this exhibition it relates to an affective encounter with this notion of exposure to an act of a second glance which creates a rippled striation across the works. What startles as an outcome of this, is to be found between the spatial settings of the image and gesture contained within the subjective impulse of the work. It is a configuration that suspends the process of a habitual way of being with each confluence. Thus, what is before is transformed by what is immediately after, this being an attribute an art of the fractured interval. A small shock, a bursting open of space, an arrest, a secretly contained recession, each of which at times is only just legible or visible. This is a quality that is invariably a feature within the process of figuring the figure, for it is this that allows for, and then attends to, the awakening of a space for the aesthetic image. It is this that chart there being nothing, to there being a something. To startle is to open the drama and play of these contraries.
About The Artists
Susanne Baumann (b. 1982, Germany) lives and works in London, England. Her work encompasses painting, drawing, and experimenting with used clothes, with a central focus on the human body, mental health, and emotions. Her father’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease has profoundly influenced her life and art. Witnessing his gradual decline has driven her to explore themes of personal loss and the slow fading of identity. Her artwork seeks to visually articulate these experiences by examining the concepts of absence and presence. This exploration manifests in her paintings through the depiction of empty clothing and interior scenes. Objects and clothing, imbued with the shapes, actions, and meanings of a person’s life, carry inherent memories.
Baumann completed her Master’s Degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2023. She is currently enrolled in the Turps Offsite Programme at Turps Art School. Baumann has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at D Contemporary, 4 Corners Gallery, HSBC Headquarters, Core Arts Gallery, Citizens Art London Gallery, Safehouse 1 & 2 and Astra Art Gallery in Shanghai. In 2024, she had her first solo show in the UK titled “Fading Echoes” at Willesden Gallery.
William GC Brown (b.1994) is a figurative painter based in London. His academic background in Psychology, and continuing interest in the mind, is a recurring influence on his work. In recent paintings, Brown aims to convey energy in stillness. Although his images are representational, he is not interested in presenting people as individuals. Instead, he wants to capture that which is universal in all of us, these moments that tap into the collective unconscious; an undercurrent of thought, feeling and memory.
Lu Chao‘s oil paintings draw formal inspiration from traditional Chinese ink painting. His innovative technique uses bold contrasts of black and white to evoke dramatic storytelling, reflecting the economy of means inherent in traditional Chinese black ink art.
His narratives explore the complex interplay between humanity and sources of power—both as terrestrial authority and metaphysical entities—aligning with the ‘humanistic’ tradition of Western art. Subtle humor runs through his depictions of contemporary society, where faceless, miniature human figures seem to resign themselves to their fates.
Born in 1988 in Shenyang, China, Lu Chao lives and works between London and Beijing. Represented by gallery rosenfeld, he studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and completed his Master’s degree in painting at the Royal College of Art in London.
Chao has had solo exhibitions in leading international galleries across Europe and Asia. A duo exhibition featuring his work was held in Venice during the 2017 Venice Biennale, earning widespread acclaim. His works are held in prestigious collections, including the Louis Vuitton Collection, DSL Collection, The Strock Collection, and the Today Art Museum.
(With thanks to gallery rosenfeld)
Izzy Kori is a multidisciplinary artist, creating figures that alternate between 3-D and 2-D materialising her memories and dreams of the visible world. Theatre and the theatrical is a large influence in her work, and she has been actively involved throughout her course in set design, making props and costume design mainly with student theatre in a range of venues from the Edinburgh Fringe to the Oxford Playhouse. Templates, collaging materials, painting, and creating wooden armatures are a part of how her figures assemble. She is interested in processes, how things are made, and displaying the act of construction within her work to show how this can create two faced narratives – the front facing and the back facing. Scale, and facilitating her work in outdoor and everyday environments are current interests of hers. Her work is created to develop narratives and stories that weave between our world and an invented world, one that is still navigating itself. Playing in a human’s world under theatrical laws allows a blurring between the world of theatre and her studio.
Yushi Li is a Chinese artist and researcher based in London. Li has been selected as one of the Foam talents in 2022 and RPS Hundred Heroines in 2019. Her work has been shown in different countries, including solo exhibitions at Fotogalleri Vasli Souza in Oslo, Union Gallery in London and group exhibitions at the UK Parliament, RIBA and Fotografiska New York, and featured in several international media and publications, such as BBC, The Guardian, and Libération. Li’s work mainly engages with the question of the gaze, using photography as her method to explore and question the gendered power relationship inherent in different looking relations in the internet age.
Celia Mora (1991, Madrid, Spain) is a painter living and working in London. She completed her studies in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid (2013). She was awarded an Erasmus Scholarship to study at the University of Arts London (2017), and graduated in 2018. She was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants to pursue her Master studies at Royal College of Arts in 2022 and her studies at Turps Art School 2023/2024. She has participated in numerous group shows in London and Spain and her works are held in private collections, including The Four Seasons Hotel, in Madrid.
Driven by a genuine interest in the depiction of the human figure, she uses the male body as her subject, with her partner serving as the model. She positions herself in the empowered role of the painter, redefining the traditional concept of the “muse” from the very first act of painting. Through this process, she challenges established notions of beauty and masculinity, exploring the body’s representation within classical painting traditions of figuration and still life.
Liam Walker was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He graduated with a BA Hons in Painting & Drawing from Edinburgh College of Art in 2012. On graduating, Walker’s work was included in the New Contemporaries exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. He graduated from The Royal Drawing School in 2016. Much of his works are autobiographical: narratives dealing with relationship, love, family, memories and concerns. His drawn scenes flit from past to present and back again; a past the artist remembers, a past he never knew and a past imagined. Walker’s works have been collected by and exhibited in Lancashire Museum of Art, The Royal Collection, and Special Exhibition in honour of the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Christie’s London.
Joe Fenwick-Wilson (b. 1993) is a UK-based artist from Rugby, Warwickshire, currently residing in Margate. His practice spans drawing, painting, and ceramic sculpture where he wrestles with traditional techniques and impulsive urges of intuitive mark-making. Fenwick-Wilson’s work explores the fluctuating nature of his imagination and illustrates his internal dialogue. He often engages haphazardly with art history, stumbling across connections with historical artists through the writings and recommendations of contemporary figures. His creative process is driven by a wide range of influences, he works ‘undercover’ sourcing ideas from unexpected places, as he collects fragments of inspiration for his art. Recently, his focus has been on archetypal symbols and their links to the collective unconscious, creating self-explanatory works that invite a universal, innate connection from his audience.