In claiming that ‘the artists extend our field of vision beyond the conventional horizon’ this exhibition oversells something we do naturally, almost involuntarily – which is, deconstruct the world around us so that it becomes a series of near-abstract elements and, vice versa, read conglomerations of abstract form as a sort of proto-figuration. The show’s most diverting moments exploit this cognitive slippage. In Helen Pritchard’s small paintings, nameable objects and geometric elements reside in what feels like a necessarily fractured evocation of space – mental as well as physical.
Most of the work invites us to engage our peripheral vision. Lilah Fowler’s sculptural interventions – bars, hoops and fence-like struts – activate various parts of the gallery with minimal means. The abutting planes of Karim Noureldin ’s drawing ‘EVO’ are similarly architecturally aware (and a taster of a permanent artwork painted on the gallery shutters, to be unveiled on December 1).
George Barber’s 2007 video ‘Automotive Action Painting’, in which paint poured on to a road is duly splattered, Pollock-style, by passing cars seems a laboured extrapolation of abstract expressionism. Significantly better is a selection of his trippy, mid-1990s videos, like ‘2001 Colours Andy Never Thought Of’, in which Warhol’s ‘Marilyn’ is subjected to filters and colour bleeds – an appropriation of an appropriation of an icon becoming unstable and corrupted over time. Anyone interested in current trendsters like Ryan Trecartin and James Richards should check out this scratch video pioneer. Barber isn’t an obvious fit for this show but he winds up stealing it.