Nick Ashby, Sally Cox, Lynne Kennedy, Christine Morrow
The four artists included in Mute position themselves within the contentious space of painting, which is increasingly accounted dead. While their enquiry is prompted within individual frameworks, Ashby, Cox, Morrow and Kennedy all exhibit a curiosity to keep looking at and questioning the secure and seemingly resolved edges of the framed space into which their practices have emerged.
In the case of Ashby and Kennedy this occurs very specifically within the square stretched format of the canvas. In their works references to Mute are taken up as an inquiry and an isolation of the painted surface as signifier. In Kennedy's work the surface is related very specifically to the body, while Ashby has isolated phrases from the end of letters to suggest an equivalence between gestural marks and endplays.
Less obvious and more challenging are Morrow's and Cox's suggestions of acts of exclusion which occur within that which is deemed a dominant artistic practice. Within the work of both of these artists there is a degree of self-reflexivity with regard to the role that they themselves play in the creation of a work of paintings' confines. More specifically addressing the dangers of self-inflicted silence, Morrow and Cox demonstrate a rigourous understanding of the complexity of issues surrounding discourses of difference.
Like the towel that refuses to hang neatly on the rack Morrow's Hygiene prompts speculation on the inclination to tidy up problems of representation. Caught rigidly within paint, the folds of her canvas towels are unable to fall into unruly waves of fabric. They hang in a state of suspended animation, reminders of the constant need for some substance to soak up messy excuses; to keep things in order.
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