Join artist Ram Samocha for a participatory metalpoint drawing performance at the opening of his upcoming solo show, No Way Back, this Thursday, 6 – 9 pm.
The exhibition title No Way Back refers both to the permanence of a mark once it has been made in metalpoint, and to our inability to efface or redact our actions. The present invariably slips into the past, and there it remains, no matter how much we wish we could change it. Like time, metalpoint is a demanding mistress: no mark can be erased and redrawn, no flaw can be rubbed out. Each work is a perfect archive of the artist’s creative process. Ram Samocha’s metalpoint practice investigates this trope of time further through the gradual discoloration of his works caused by oxidation. Since moving to Brighton, the gradual tonal shifts of the metalpoints have been accelerated by Britain's legendary damp. In No Way Back, Samocha revisits imagery from his time in Ontario alongside a suite of works that directly reference the day-to-day experience of living in Britain. Patchwork fields are juxtaposed against European roundabouts and the pastoral magnificence of craggy cliffs.
Since moving to Brighton, England in 2011, Samocha has refined the unique skill set of metalpoint, and placed it at the heart of his drawing and video practice. He is the only artist creating sculptural metalpoint drawings in the world today.
juliemgallery.com
Ram Samocha: No Way Back