Andys Gallery welcomes you to the opening of the group exhibition Hoodie Toe with artists Tomas Rydin, Ross Taylor and Sofia Viol.
22.08.24 - 28.09.24
Ghostwhispers, moon writing, or simply the ‘old’ brain whirring, much like the title of this exhibition, Hoodie Toe refers to the codified language and internal mutterings that fester within the studio, forewarning and denoting a painting's monstrous consequence. Smelly words, close and short, that somehow congeal on the crusty rim of quiet concentrated moments, where thought becomes a form of invocation, ideas intensify and the subconscious is appeased.
Yet, it is not clear what happens and when. From the point of view of the painting (I know, I have asked), apt descriptions are not just mere requisite and the synchronicities that lie within mark and mutter are themselves causative agents. The observable grammar that arises from this voyage is the material remnant of a real-time ticker-tape translation, a ‘title’ in this sense, a kind of True Name to its prenatal memory. Words should not be affixed to the things we make, like the name of some naff nightclub (Revolution, Re-Evolve, REIgnite). Rather, the lonely painting, along with its forlorn maker, should pertain to exist within a kind of divining time, their outcome drawn inside a circle of multiple selves. Their wares being the debased and grotesque hallucinations of one’s own private Demiurge, who belligerently critiques the work from an adjoining room and can only be half heard.
To this end, what are paintings if not vessels of moving information. Every stroke becoming clear only in the passing view of all others. In an exhibition, perhaps like the one in front of you, something intrinsic that sits in between images can be pulled and bottled up, like the guts of an exquisite corpse. A grinding album of scrolling psychic tartan, dank sigils and pillowed marginalia, appearing burnt and hoary, like the terasecond aged patterns etched into the backs of our retinas. A sentiment inextricably entwined with a type of contingency that is necessary for something to mean anything at all.
