Chris Agnew | Rachel Garrard | Nick Hornby: Geometry

GEOMETRY

ArtEco Gallery, London, is proud to present the group exhibition Geometry, featuring works by Chris Agnew, Rachel Garrard and Nick Hornby. Running from 12^th October to 10^th November 2012, the show seeks to examine different concepts of geometry in contemporary artistic practice. By juxtaposing the different oeuvres of these three artists, from etchings to three-dimensional renderings, Geometry creates a syzygy of sorts, shedding light on the complexities of line, form, and the intersection and diversion of different planes and nodes.

Presenting tow interrelated projects, Celestial Sphere and Precession, Rachel Garrard has been inspired by the geometric patterns and movements of stars and planets. "The Celestial Sphere is an imaginary dome used by astronomers to describe the position of the stars as seen from the earth," she explains. Inspired by a residency in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the silverpoint drawings of Celestial Sphere are the result of a meditation on the way in which celestial bodies interact. "I began to envision each star as a centre of energy, connecting throughout the cosmos through web-like grids, or as synapses of a great brain." Meanwhile, Precession is an ongoing project that has included holographic projection. Here, it finds its latest incarnation in a series of etchings that study the movement of the night sky. Using acid engraved steel plates, the pigment comes from ground-up shells that Garrard calls "star dust", as named by the Kogi people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria mountain, Colombia, from whom she drew her inspiration for the project. This soft, shimmery material gives each work a luminous quality and spiritual link to celestial realms.

Chris Agnew has also chosen to work in etchings, using oil paint on icon panel to create a new series of works especially for the exhibition, building on the works he exhibited in his first solo show earlier in the year. Where previous work depicted landscapes and objects that had links to religions and belief systems, for Geometry, Agnew has reexamined his own practice, stripping back to reveal "[the works'] simple aesthetic roots, with the intention of allowing the pieces to speak a language of universals rather than of specifics." With a new focus on the core concerns of his practice, works such as The Ark, Ahora Gorge - which features a mountain where the remains of Noah's Ark are said to have been found - find new life in an exploration of textures and colours instead, creating visually arresting reworkings that no longer rely on their initial context.

Presenting models of unrealized sculptural proposals designed during his time at a residency at Eyebeam in New York City, Nick Hornby will also present a video of the same project. These deconstructed architectural models pick and take apart existing structures to break them down into their most basic components before building them back up again into new and original forms. The resultant object is as much sci-fi as it is a postmodern ruin. Hornby's 360-degree renderings provide a tantalizing glimpse of the original iconic form before rotating into new territories, like asteroids floating in space coming together again to reveal a new face, only to dissolve yet again. By reinterpreting, deconstructing and reconstructing, Hornby puts materials and shapes into opposition with one another in both clash and harmony.

It is through these varied, yet complementary, practices that Geometry will present audiences with a new exploration of stellar planes, shapes, lines and dimensions. Whether two- or three-dimensional, what draws these works together is the dialogue created between them, questioning notions of shape, context and perception.