DEXTER DYMOKE & ANNA HUGHES

A Dangling Conversation

29 MARCH - 4 MAY 2013

VIEW WORKS

NETTIE HORN is pleased to present “A Dangling Conversation” – the outcome of the recent meeting and playfully introspective conversations between English artists Dexter Dymoke and Anna Hughes. Featuring a new series of sculptural works and paintings the exhibition is the result of the open dialogue and mutual reflexions which took place around each artist’s practice – the evocation of subjects such as narrativity, consciousness and indeterminacy emphasized their common grounds and individual specificities.

When Dexter first evoked his attraction to the quiet tension emerging from Anna’s practice, a common ground was found. While this notion takes shape through the encounter of diversely sourced material in Dymoke’s sculptures, Hughes’ paintings express - according to the sculptor - “a bracing relationship between surface activity and a brewing storm beyond”. There is also the question of the liminal space described by Dymoke as a place where “something emerges and a void becomes a vessel”. This idea resonates throughout his watchful and perceptive attitude towards his interventional approach to the materials in his work. The necessity for this pause combined with spontaneity is, according to Hughes, what comes with making artwork, confronting the “What now” and “What next” at the beginning of each new body of work.

One thing leading to another, “shape and non-shape”, notions of indeterminacy and the Sublime are discussed between the sculptor and the painter through further exchanges and reflexions.  Lyotard notably seems to have nourished Hughes’ approach to the Sublime – this inexpressible and indeterminate reflexion on art, which conveys the notions of time and consciousness. Later she goes on to say about her work: “One of the reasons I have often worked in a small scale is to try and draw the viewer into kinds of introspective spaces of unknowing, and I have attempted to provoke an indeterminacy in the imagery through an oily fluidity in the paint that allows me to play with blurring and sliding forms into less coherent states. In the more recent work I also experimented with staining, allowing the images to half seep away as another attempt at this...It definitely appears as if information is today’s currency and this brings with it a tension that I personally feel as anxiety! An anxiety for less, for silence and stillness but also for those exhilarating states of unknowing that for me occur as a kind of clamour!”

On a different ground there is a minimalist form of narrative, which emanates from Dymoke’s practice whether it is “semi hidden” or rooted in a “plausible but unfamiliar imagery”. These smaller scale works push the viewer to engage with them through a closer scrutiny as a way to question modes of display and opens “the conversation about the classical plinth”. These works also bring to mind the notion of archaeological ground through excavations and crafted shapes, which allude to the ideas the “universal type of object” and the Sublime evocated in Anna Hughes’ paintings.

image: Anna Hughes, 2013

For inquiries regarding availability of works and prices, or additional information about the artist, please contact the gallery

Installation View, A Dangling Conversation, NETTIE HORN, London

Installation View, A Dangling Conversation, NETTIE HORN, London

Installation View, A Dangling Conversation, NETTIE HORN, London

Anna Hughes
Head over heels, 2013
Oil on linen
30 x 40 cm

Dexter Dymoke
Harvester, 2013
Adapted easel, plywood, metal
181 x 83.5 x 50.5 cm

Anna Hughes
Untitled, 2013
Oil and wax on canvas
45 x 35 cm

Dexter Dymoke
Two discoveries, 2013
Marble, plywood, oak, copper
22 x 12.5 x 6.5 cm

Anna Hughes
Hotspot, 2013
Oil and wax on canvas
30 x 40 cm

Dexter Dymoke
Untitled, 2013
Plywood, filler, plaster, paint
41 x 14.5 x 27.5 cm

Dexter Dymoke
Tablet, 2013
Plywood, aluminium, plaster
12 x 41 x 27.5 cm

Anna Hughes
Untitled, 2013
Oil on linen
50 x 35 cm

Installation View, A Dangling Conversation, NETTIE HORN, London

Dexter Dymoke
Maquette for an elaboration of the difficulties, 2013
Plywood, perspex, marble, filler, paint, wood
129 x 35.5 x 23.5 cm

Anna Hughes
Augury, 2013
Oil and on linen
70 x 50 cm

Anna Hughes
Needle's Eye, 2011
Oil and yarn on linen
45 x 35 cm

Dexter Dymoke
The End, 2010
Bronze
16 x 12 x 10 cm