David Miles’ poster 18th appeals for information about an incident many years ago on a West Sussex beach. Who is the young man drinking Guinness on his 18th birthday? Perhaps the artist himself, trying to recapture a hazy memory lost in the fog of time, or the fire of alcohol? Memory is a strange and nebulous phenomenon, apt to play tricks, distort or disappear entirely, but it’s the solid thread that binds the work of a group of artists currently exhibiting at Paper Gallery, Manchester.
Unstable Ground curator and participant Simon Woolham joins Miles and Annabel Dover, Laura Oldfield Ford, Reece Jones, George Shaw, Stephen Walter, and Lisa Wilkens – all artists who reflect on memory and explore how autobiographical memory relates to drawing methods and the direct interaction with the paper surface. Wilkens and Dover look to treasured objects in their work; from OldField-Ford and Walter it’s two different approaches to representing urban environments, while Jones and Shaw takes us to dense and mysterious rural scenes. Remember to catch Unstable Ground before the closing date of 13 September.