Hyper Mesh

Jonathan Baldock, Pauline Bastard, Fleuryfontaine, Holly Hendry, Jessie Makinson, Fani Parali, Morgan Wills

Assembly Point is delighted to present Hyper Mesh, a group show curated by Alice Bonnot. The exhibition brings together new work from eight international artists.

Comprising of painting, sculpture, moving image and performance, the exhibition explores contemporary notions of identity, and sets out to examine how identity structures could be re-imagined or reconstructed.

Hyper Mesh takes the concept of “Mesh” in relation to the theories developed by eco-theorist and philosopher Timothy Morton [1], who pioneered the principle of interconnected systems in life forms [2]. Morton’s research proposes that beings of different kinds including human, animal, vegetable and mineral are connected and coexist within the same network structures – a mesh that is infinite and beyond concept.

Inspired by the idea of an interconnected network, Hyper Mesh offers multiple interpretations of identity, from the geological to the administrative, the personal to the global.

Collaborative artists Fleuryfontaine address the limits of the flag as a symbol of identity using silicone tinted with pigments. Pauline Bastard questions the construction of the self and the credibility of the administrative mazes that we navigate on a daily basis. Showing for the first time in the UK will be a three-screen presentation of her digital work “Alex”.

Approaching the subject through the fictional or the fantastic, Fani Parali’s newly commissioned performance ‘Angels like Buildings’ creates gender-fluid identities that encompass Greek mythology and folklore; Jessie Makinson new works evokes contemporary ideas of femininity mixed with cultural appropriation, using multi layered landscape imagery; Jonathan Baldock’s sculptures playfully revisit the values of the mask by revealing characteristics of today’s societal vices; through painting Morgan Wills interrogates issues related to the formation of the self, using the human figure to continually abstract and distort preconceived ideas about the formation of the body; Holly Hendry’s sculptures speculate on the remains or ‘evidence’ of human identity in the geologic strata that will characterise the Anthropocene.

1 - Morton, T. (2011). ‘The Mesh’, Environmental criticism for the twenty-first century. ed. by Stephanie LeMenager and others (New York: Routledge, 2011). http://www.academia.edu/1046913/The_Mesh

2 - Blasdel, A. (2018). ‘A reckoning for our species’: the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/15/timothy-morton-anthropocene-philosopher [Accessed 20 Dec. 2018].

Alice Bonnot is a London-based curator and art consultant. She is the co-founding director of Picnic, a contemporary art space occupying a long window in the Aylesham Centre in Peckham, and the founding director of the Zone d’Utopie Temporaire (Z.U.T.) residency programme, a nomadic annual residency addressing the notion of Utopia as a vehicle for artistic and critical comment. Exhibitions include: Bored but secured, Wozen, Lisbon, 2018, Acts of disruption, The Concept Space, London, 2018, A series of pocket Utopias, Yellow Brick and Snehta, Athens, 2017, Right Through You, The Koppel Project Hive, London, 2017, Prix Canson finalists, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, co-curated with Laurent Boudier, 2015.

Pauline Bastard creates complex narratives developed through installations, films and sculptures containing and relating to her experiments. Through collaborations she generates with scriptwriters, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, she questions the construction of the self and its place in the contemporary world. Born in 1982, lives and works in Paris. Solo exhibitions include: Gravé dans la robe, Galerie Eva Hober, Paris 2018, Bilder de Welt, Villa Merkel, Esslingen 2018, Alex, Mam Galerie, Rouen, 2016, Alex, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, 2015, Denim Victory, Galerie Eva Hober, Paris, 2015, La Transition, Le confort moderne, Poitiers, 2015, Quiet Enjoyements, Le Point Commun, Annecy, 2014, No Breakfast for Tiffany, Barbara Seiler Gallery, Zurich.

Jessie Makinsons wall drawings are borrowed from her works on paper. These drawings are made by randomly pooling ink and watercolour onto paper. When dry the surface acts as a structure for all things in the world of her drawings, suggesting a small animal, or a figure perhaps. From there the drawing grows outwards. With each shape, form, line, figure placed, the narrative will shift and be found in the act of making. Born in 1985, UK. Selected exhibitions include: Solo show at Galleria OMR, Mexico City, 2018; Stuart lorimer and Jessie Makinson at Lyles and King, New York, November 2018; Something else, Triumph Gallery, Moscow, September 2018.

Jonathan Baldock works across multiple platforms including sculpture, installation and performance. With work often taking on a biographical form, he addresses the trauma, stress, sensuality, mortality, and spirituality around our relationship to the body and the space it inhabits. Born in 1980, UK. Solo and two persons exhibitions include: Sara Zanin, Rome, 2018, There’s No Place Like Home, CGP, London, 2017, My biggest fear is that someone will to crawl into it, Space, London, 2017, Love Life: Act 2, The Grundy, Blackpool 2017, Love Life: Act 3, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 2017, Jonathan Baldock, OneWorkGallery, Vienna 2017, Love Life: Act 1, Peer, London 2016, The Skin I Live in, Nicelle Beauchene, New York, 2016.

Through installations, performances and digital pictures, artists Galdric Fleury and Antoine Fontaine, known as Fleuryfontaine, questions the interactions between man and its close environment, using information technologies as their field of investigation. Both live and work in Paris. Selected exhibitions include: Exo Gallery, EP7, Paris, France, 2018, Bored but Secured, Wozen Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal, 2018, Do Disturb, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2018, Virtual Dream Center 2.1, Les Halles de la Villette, Paris, France, 2018, Index, solo exhibition, Les Grands Voisins, Paris, France, 2017, isthisit?, third edition, isthisitisthisit.com, 2017, Altered State Part II, Jussieu, Paris, 2017.

Fani Parali creates situations where different medium components are choreographed together, often through directing and collaborating with performers. Her practice 
is focused on the formulation of identity beyond the body’s presence. Parali wants 
to create a sense of warmth, which can potentially be felt through the mediation of the voices she imagines and realizes. Born in 1983, Greece, lives and works in London. Selected exhibitions include: The Creatures, Chalton Gallery, London, 2018, Chumming, The Pipe Factory (part of GI Festival), Glasgow, 2018, Bearing Liability, Strange Cargo Gallery, Folkestone, 2017, RA Schools Show 2017, Royal Academy Schools, London, Gender, Identity and Material, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2017, Drawing Biennale 2017, Drawing Room, London.

Holly Hendry is a British artist whose sculptures look at the back of things by dealing with the notion of the internal and the external. This can be applied to the body, display and production, architectural rear spaces and hidden bodily activities, or situations that are brought into view through specific objects, textures or forms. Born in 1990, UK. Selected exhibitions include: GUM SOULS, Frutta Rome, Italy, 2018, Phyllis, Selfridges Duke Street Commission (Commissioned by Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Selfridges), London, 2018, Arratia Beer, Berlin, 2017, The Box, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, 2017, Nothing You Have to Understand, Galerie Mikael Andersen, 2017, Wrot, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2017, Lightness, White Rainbow, London, 2017.

Morgan Wills is a British painter who engages with the intangibility of imagery through conversational visual language, and employs elements such as informal quotation, repetition, colloquialism and word play. In doing so he attempts to address how this intangibility reflects the existential anxieties inherent to the creative process, and aims to learn more about the inextricably human preoccupation.Born in 1992, UK. Solo exhibitions include: Wisdom Tooth, Unit1 Gallery/Workshop, London, 2017, 12 Conversations, Sid Motion Gallery, London, 2016, Versions, BAES, London, 2015. Group exhibitions include: ‘John Moores Painting Prize’, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2018; ‘GIFC’, various locations – ongoing, 2018 ; Play on Repeat, Sid Motion Gallery, London, 2018, Papercuts, with Kris Day at Tripp Gallery, London, 2017.