DAGMAR HEPPNER, HANNAH JAMES, CHARLOTTE MOTH
January 20 – February 18 2012
Cole London

Cole is pleased to present an exhibition by Dagmar Heppner, Hannah James, and Charlotte Moth. The exhibition brings together three artists whose work explores notions of site and architecture, employing screens and curtains as dividing structures which question our perceived associations of interior and exterior spaces. There is a sense of both concealment and revealment through the way in which the works inhabit space and address notions of public and private spaces. Each artist uses the curtain as a form of framing device, leading the eye and body from one view to another. However these slight structures remain caught in a moment of continual flux as they oscillate between sculptural form and image.
Dagmar Heppner explores the limitations of perception and individuality through the modification of objects and images as well as architectural elements, often through the use of fabrics, employing monumental widths and folds. For this show she presents Untitled (Stoff), a blue fabric piece that from the street resembles a common curtain. Upon entering the space its oversized scale is revealed as its folds and waves occupy the gallery, giving it a fluid and sculptural presence at odds with its initial austere presence, creating a reluctant monumentality. The work suggests a potential presence and absence, by both hiding and revealing the space. Alongside this Heppner shows two prints based on images extracted from vintage fashion plates, with the bodyparts of the models removed, leaving the abstract outlines of graceful figures.
The act of recording or tracing transitory moments, constructed mise-en-scenes, forgotten memories, personal archives or possible fictions can all be found in the works of Hannah James. Manifesting as documents of images and objects, these subjects become simultaneously visible, and yet increasingly, more oblique. For this exhibition James presents Screen #5 St Thomas’ Sq (photograph montage), a series of framed 35mm black and white photographs depicting a strange structure in an anonymous public garden. Like much of James’ work this is part of a developed series formed around one object; mediating the subject further from its audience. However, these layers create a lineage within the work, always bearing a trace back to the original source.
Charlotte Moth practice investigates how landscape, architecture and social and economic milieu work together to create a context that explores our relationship to place. For the exhibition she shows Book Installation, a work developed during a recent residency at the former Araujo Porto Institute, a school for deaf-mutes in Porto. As part of the residency Moth produced a publication that incorporated images from her ongoing Travelogue series. This image bank is a collection of images of architecture, landscapes, decorative elements, spaces and details. Through the display of this book an existing collection of images from the Travelogue is open to further extensions of use through being combined with a selection of images of a recent exhibition at Lavomatic in St Ouen, France, including images of objects Moth collected and filmed during the residency, as well as a recent visit to Eileen Gray’s famous house E-1027. Here the pages of the book are arranged in constellations of groups to construct a range of relationships between the differing aspects of Moth’s practice.

Tom Cole