Vistamarestudio is pleased to present Zoo, Hat, Bridge, Tree: Architectural Propositions of Onomatopoeia, Charles Avery’s first solo show in Milano.
Avery, who grew up on the Isle of Mull (Scotland) presents a series of drawings, realised over the past five years, that depict important constructions from the imaginary town of Onomatopoeia, the capital city of the fictional Island that Avery uses to explore a range of ideas touching on mathematics, architecture, literature and mathematical philosophy.
Key to the exhibition is a large scale panoramic drawing Untitled (Inner Circle, Onomatopoeia Zoo), 2016 that shows a zoo bustling with life, both human and other. The more we examine the picture the more we realise it is less about the modest zoology, and more about the people and the architecture they inhabit. Complimenting this major work are several rigorously architectural, beautifully decorated studies that give insight into how the fictional buildings are conceived before they are ready to be drawn. Avery says ‘Drawing a building that will convince is like drawing a person. You must understand its function, how it functions, where its staircases and steels and pipes are before you put the skin on.’ In the centre of the gallery are two objects which are called a ‘Tree’ and a ‘Hat’. Both objects attest to an A Priori culture, with pure mathematics woven through their fabric.
Using drawing as his principle medium, the artist himself becomes one of the fiction’s protagonists. The Island exists as a place for new beginning and opportunity, where bridges and buildings are built; bars and hotels are opened and tourists, greedy for another culture, are greeted as they pour off boats into the harbour.
As Plato identified the ‘Two Worlds Theory’, the sensible world, and the intelligible world, so Avery, in the limit of trying to decode where the world ends and fiction begins, invites the viewer to play an active role between subjectivity and imagination, in search of his Atlantis.
Charles Avery (b. 1973, Oban, UK) lives and works in London and on the Island of Mull. Recent exhibitions include The Seventh Continent, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, 16th Istanbul Biennale (2019); Study #15: Charles Avery, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2017); The Improbable City, Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh (2015); What’s the matter with Idealism?, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (2015). Avery represented Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Avery’s work is in numerous collections including Tate, London; Arts Council England Collection, London; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Deutsche Bank Collection, New York and David Roberts Art Foundation, London, amongst others.