Thirteen Blackbirds Look At A Man

Fiona MacDonald, Cathie Pilkington, Annie Whiles & Sean Ashton

The artists in this exhibition seek out resonance and allegiance through myth. Whatever the demands of contemporary fashion, their work follows an instinctive urge, to a place where the day-to-day recedes and allows for the fruiting strangeness of the imaginative realm.

We live in a complex world in which connectivity - once seen as magical - can now be understood in rational ways. And yet there is always a surplus, an inexplicable knowledge: mythology supplies a reservoir of elaboration on these ‘mysteries’. It is a place where allegorised, complicated series’ of events can attempt to demystify the laws of nature and the universe, whilst remaining fantastically impervious to reason. It is a domain that embraces contradiction and caprice and at times the cruelty and drama of the stories is breath-taking.

These artists commit themselves, entering the space of the instinctual with some urgency and a handful of humour. Their works have a quality of unfolding to reveal ideas of visual mysticism, neo-religious feeling, or dark import. The characters may have been sourced from real life, Bible stories, Greek myths or German fairy tales, but all are forged and formed by allegiance to a particular quality of ‘sacred narrative’.