Flickering Flames and The Radiant Sun

Jessica Groome | Stephanie Loveday | Nam Nguyen | Ties Ten Bosch

creatively coordinated by Nam Nguyen

Opening on Thursday, the 3rd of August, from 19:00 to 21:30 with a performance by Stefanie Loveday at 20:00

The show is open to the public every Saturday and Sunday during the period of the exhibition from 14.00 to 18.00 or by appointment

The exhibition “Flickering Flames and the Radiant Sun” is the sequel to “Out of the Cave and into the Garden: In Honor of Robot the Dog”, which was held in 2019 at La Datcha, a project space located in a Schrebergarten in Wedding, Berlin. At SAP space, the sequel exhibition further develops artistic practice through the metaphors of the “Flickering Flame” that refers obliquely to the fire light used to cast a play of shadows in Plato's Cave, in relation to the blinding truth outside as referred to by the “Radiant Sun”. Through this metaphorical bridging and our installation choices within the interior gallery and exterior garden, our exhibition aims to unify internal themes of subjective interiority in abstraction with external practices of site-specificity and poetic symbolism. In the gallery, Nam Nguyen and Jessica Groome both investigate internal concerns of abstraction. In their paintings and drawings, nuances of sensation are revealed through their investigation into the dynamics of light and atmosphere, colour and space. In his recent series of experimental works with his own self produced gesso, Nam continues his engagement with craft as a means to articulate sensations of atmosphere from his personal experience. Jessica in contrast, in her Bad Spelling series, begins with looping forms that refer to writing, which although they never emerge as coherent communication, her paintings and drawings never-the-less impact an undeniable presence through their intense color and her refined touch. In addition, informed by her curating/gardening practice at La Datcha project space, Jessica Groome exhibits her painting Bad Speller (double bubble) outdoors among the plants exposed to the ever changing light of the sun. Sharing the exterior space with Jessica's painting is Stefanie Loveday and Ties Ten Bosch, who both explore the garden area as a site for improvisation towards developing latent symbolic and material relationships. Ties, in his work Straight from the branch, the liquid cores that are usually encased in a spirit-level are embedded into branches of various sizes. By using found objects from the garden to re-level the artwork, these objects are pulled into his poetic machinations. Similarly, Stefanie in her exploration of the site, found a discarded satellite dish, which formed a starting point in developing her sound performance-installation piece Debris Signal. Fascinated with the discarded object both as both a symbol of communication and its sonic potential, she adapted the satellite into a parabolic speaker. Using degraded signals from short wave radio and electronic processes of distortion, in her performance she reverberates a sonic gradation of the fraught uncertainties and emphatic desire for communication. We invite you to enjoy the dance of flickering flames and the radiance of the shining sun.

— Text by Nam Nguyen