Brooke Benington is pleased to present Fortnight, an online exhibition by Ross Taylor. Inside a new suite of fourteen drawings, Taylor likes to suggest that the imminent rather effects our societal and collaborative selves, tending to spoil those splendid moments of possible duende. Shall we do something about that dead plant? Er ... we could do. In dissuading, we destabilise and undermine any such scheme, as most things mean to happen in a couple of weeks. By placing a task within this somewhat shadowy and nebulous tract of time, you can conveniently alter the course of any impending drudgery that drifts towards. Go at shuffling speed, on your bum, out of a collapsed car seat, whilst attempting to hook your nubbins, one at a time, into the crushed backs of shoes which now find themselves out of any zone of dignity. Unbothered and back upright, we can hobble into somewhere less imperious, even dimly lit. Is this where intent comes to lounge and laze? A stop-over for the visionary, where they can dally and preserve those incredibly necessary ideas. Like that concertinaed flyer for a jewellery party, or the spreadsheet you’ve been cultivating for the times you’ve bought ‘household’ goods. Essentially meaning loo roll.
Unlike the month or the year - their roots being in a variety of moon and sun cults - the week in all its celestial and Germanic mess was gifted to society principally as a period relatable to the days of market. Appearing atavistic, the week instead focuses the noisy countdown of commerce, and in turn became the unrelenting and recurrent format of our times. A fortnight deviates from this meticulousness. As a softer unit of measurement, it comes with a secondary meaning. Snagging our attention and becoming a reflex or a banner for which certain parties who tread a cursed patch can rally under. Let’s remember, the week of market draws many peculiar folk.
The High Street now contains an unseen crowd of associates. A perpetual stew who each work to stretch their collective body into a formless, monstrous deception. As with any fringe sub-culture, it needs its corporeal trinkets to coalesce. In the busy town people are understood by their customary attire, without this, all social hierarchies are destabilised. The troupe disguise themselves with a variation of prosthesis, face paint and ludicrously squeaky inflections, as they scheme to avoid the institution of the fayre. Things get weird and in a very specific way. A Chapel Perilous of some kind, a cosmic trigger which animates the shabby sundry mob to step forward from the crowd and be recognised like the ancestors of some local crime family. Waxy figurines, who seem permanently transfixed and barely communicative. Preserved, like a vestige as the Romans encouraged, for the prosperity of by-gone nundine hangovers. Which are kept in a grimy high-up gloss green electrical corner cupboard, probably in some caff celebrated by a changing suburb fending off the tide of HS2 and shit flats. Places where foam oozes through the topsoil of their now overly fortified comprehensive school fields.
Ross Taylor was born in 1982 in London, where he continues to live and work. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Painting, he was awarded the Abbey Scholarship at the British School at Rome, and was artist in residence at the Edward James Foundation and, more recently, Hogchester Arts. Along with his brother, he also runs a small publishing house called Mrs Paterson’s Press. Recent exhibitions include, Hoodie Toe, Andys, Stockholm, 2024; Bye Bye Confidence, Ivan Gallery, Bucharest, 2024; Poison, OHSH, London, 2023 and The rumbling tum, Russi Klenner, Berlin, 2022.
