Foundation graduate Nick Kennedy is set to present a significant new body of works on paper, in his first solo show for Platform A Gallery, titled: We are all measured together.
Nick’s work follows a path of experimentation with a practice that spans drawing, sculpture, installation and performance. His ‘experiments’ often deliberately parody scientific process to reflect a fascination with the hidden nature of things, time and materials. He seeks order in a chaotic world, recasting chance and unpredictability as his tools. In recent projects, Kennedy has distanced himself from the act of making through the introduction of delicate drawing devices and close collaboration with participants to realise works that explore the boundaries of drawing.
The exhibition takes its title from a large scale installation of works on paper, presented here for the first time. We Are All Measured Together comprises 70 pairs of A3 drawings, made over a three month period using a specially constructed drawing apparatus. The work can be considered as the record of a studio based process of ‘testing’, both of the limits of the apparatus and of Kennedy’s own control over it.
Recalling the paintings Factum I and II by Robert Rauschenberg, each pair of drawings was made in an attempt to mirror one another. These drawings seem arrest motion in a series of dynamically shifting, repeated forms, a group of imperfect twins whose small differences and imperfections create a carefully balanced, but inherently flawed, symmetrical harmony.
The accompanying series of drawingsStudies in Truth and Error, employ a similar language of expressive, indeterminate forms, which loop and overlap one another to create compositions at once human and alien. Formed from a series of repeated mechanical gestures unfolding over a period of many hours, these densely rendered works convey a seemingly infinite cyclic movement. These drawings attest to Kennedy’s aherence to a challenging process of making, wherein an awkward beauty is discovered through the meeting of instinctive decision making and the chance procedure.
The We Are All Measured Together Exhibition runs from 24th March until 23rd April 2016 at Platform A Gallery, Middlesbrough Railway Station, Zetland Road, Middlesbrough, TS1 1EG.
The private view will be held on 24th March between 6pm-8pm.