GEORGE WIGLEY
PSYCHOGEOGRAPHIES
Imogen Allen/ George Wigley
November 6, 2020 -
January 8, 2021
Psychogeography, as the word immediately suggests, is an intersection of psychology and geography. As a means of exploring the behavioural impact of urban place, this idea has its roots in 1950’s Paris with Guy Debord who was inspired by the French 19th century poet Charles Baudelaire’s concept of the flâneur. According to Baudelaire in his essay The Painter of Modern Life (1863) the flâneur was a casual or dilettante observer, urban wanderer, one could say a modern day day-dreamer.
This exhibition at the Camberwell Student Union Gallery is part of the program of presenting the work of two recent graduates. Psychogeographies presents the work of Imogen Allen and George Wigley (Camberwell Painting Class of 2020), whose work one could argue share concerns of what Debord describes as playful and inventive ways of navigating the urban environment.
Imogen Allen’s small paintings present observations. The paintings don’t appear to be made from conventional sitters but rather from recollections. Their intimate size depicts hand gestures or details of mannerisms observed perhaps from commuters or passersby; with images becoming a form of urban magic realism. In Opal Residence (2020) a face turns as a glimpsed fleeting moment.
George Wigley’s sculptural works explore object-value ideas. He exploits historical associations inherent of the ready-made, pushing the idea of the found object literally, as a modern day urban flâneur who encounters unfolding narratives by finding discarded objects presented to him to reinvent. In Double Stack (2020) we are invited to a double take as involucrated viewer who might question the nature of this simulacrum or walk by unaware it is a work.
List of Works
George Wigley
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Vent/ Pipe (2020) Found Vent and housing, found air conditioning pipe. 95 x 65 x 40 cm.
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Cut Bannister (2020) Sapele mopstick bannister, ink, handrail brackets.120 x 120 x 9 cm.
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Pocket (2020) Found shirt pocket, Biro.18.5 x 14 cm.
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Hang Time (2019) Found Post Office handrail, cotton webbing, plywood, rope, oil on board, pine. 102 x 87 x 19 cm.
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Cauliflower Bag (2020) Found “Kent Cauliflower” bag, handmade teak supports, leather strap, brass Chicago rivets, brass strap end cap, acrylic on plywood board. 57 x 52 x 29 cm.
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Double Stack (2020) Found hardboard, acrylic on canvas mounted on Modroc mould. 61 x 114 cm.
Imogen Allen
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Flame Roots (2020) Oil on canvas. 20 x 25 cm.
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Mother’s Frame (2020) Oil on canvas. 33 x 24 cm.
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Sacrifice (2020) Oil on canvas. 33 x 24 cm.
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Mind Miner (2020) Oil on canvas. 33 x 24 cm.
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Beneath Her (2020) Oil on canvas. 33 x 24 cm.
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Hands to Neck (2020) Oil on canvas. 20 x 25 cm.f
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Circulating Touch (2020) Oil on canvas. 33 x 24 cm.
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Placenta (2020) Oil on canvas 33 x 24 cm.
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Heart Rotation (2018) Oil on canvas. 58 x 30 cm.
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Opal Residence (2020) Oil on canvas. 33 x 24 cm.
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Breaking Apart/ Solar Plexus Opening (2020) Oil on canvas. 33 x 24 cm.
Artists' Statements
George Wigley makes sculptural and wall-based three-dimensional work that places discarded objects in new systems or contexts that play on their function through their form or materiality. He’s interested in the complexity and function of the everyday infrastructure that surrounds us, and how our relationships to objects change when they stop being useful to us. As in Cut Bannister (2020), objects are reconfigured and transformed to consider their potential for new agency in their context of existing ideas of material culture and value.
Imogen Allen’s paintings are characterized by the dreamlike and the visionary paintings. Driven by the energetic power of colour, her work deals with conveying the intimate relationship between our bodies and our minds, as well as forming poetic links between the emotive state and the elements. Flame Roots (2020) shows a figure curled into himself, in a fetal-like position, connected to a space below through a vibrant root or vein like web. This electric form erupts as flames within the centre of his body, showing our life force as interconnected with that of the earth.