There are no lines here…only the slow curve of the horizon

The Equator is a navigable idea that must be celebrated when traversed; a literal rite of passage that initiate must visit upon the neophyte.

There are no lines here…only the slow curve of the horizon was an exhibition I curated at APT gallery London, in February 2013.

The concept of the equator as geometric form, ‘imaginary line' and specific place, and institution to be inducted into, symbolised in the Crossing the Line Ceremony image, acts as a metaphor for the material and conceptual concerns that each artist shares. The exhibition will present work which problematises the relationship between depiction, and the perception of that depiction; the artwork as ‘thing-in-itself’, which can also can be perceived as referring to something outside of itself; and an implicit suggestion of pareidolia, whereby vague and random visual stimuli are perceived as significant.

All of the work relates in some way to the Crossing the Line Ceremony image: Dave Hazel’s geometric abstract photographs, which can also be read as suns, eclipses or moons; Matt Golden’s upscaling of fragments of Japanese pottery, re-imagining them as part of a painterly landscape tradition, echoing the trade/appropriation of visual languages; Richard Paul’s Atoll installation of packing crate lightboxes and a carpet printed with a 3D geometry diagram of spheres; the tension in Mandy Ure’s paintings between primitive, almost child-like imagery and laboriously repetitive production, which in this context could be read as a metaphor for the contrast between modern ship and primitive ritual - physical and psychological dichotomies which are also key features of Simon Cunningham’s photographic work.