Observation rOOMS

A Shape_shifters Exhibition

May 2019

An exhibition of site-specific works by five artists. Drawing on archetypes from a myriad of sources to create immersive, illusionistic and experimental installations. Activated by the viewer, space materialises, dematerialises, unfolds, shifts and collapses as you journey through the various portals, crossing thresholds into other worlds.

Davis and Hibbs bring together different aspects of their artists’ practice into direct dialogue with one another, creating a collaborative work made up of modular parts; steel frames and mirrored elements that reflect both one another and reconfigure the surrounding space, acting as an endlessly changing composing device as the viewer navigates the work, disorientating and mesmerising the observer.

Sasha Bowles plays with scale and architectural tropes, miniaturising, enlarging and  re-positioning Illusionary worlds that are then consumed and possessed within frameworks of spatial constructs.

Gibson / Martelli investigate the relationship between figure and landscape via modes of moving, and bodily responses. The viewer is pulled into a lexicon of realities where movement is explored and experienced through the gateways of emergent technologies.

The common thread in the collective is that they all transform shape, space, environment and experience through their multi- disciplinary approaches. Some of the connecting themes that the artists investigate are; modes of display, illusionary experience, architecture and reconstruction of space. All of the artists acknowledge in their practices the central importance of generative dialogue and exchange alongside experimentation, risk taking and research to their process of artmaking.

In this respect they work collaboratively on the exhibitions whether through the creation and development of their work in conversation with others, curatorial projects, residencies and

exhibition making.

Shape_Shifters are a collective of six artists; consisting of Sasha Bowles, Rosalind Davis, Justin Hibbs, Evy Jokhova and Gibson / Martelli who originally had an exhibition together at Arthouse1 in 2016.

View Press Release here