Nick Malone
A Tale Of Two Lives
14-25 March 2017 | Art Bermondsey Project Space
"A Tale of Two Lives crosses and combines new and traditional art forms in sudden and unforeseen ways, linking large, dramatic works in charcoal, burnt wood and canvas in the main gallery with a smaller room that recreates with sketches and a soundscape a chapter from The Disappearance of Makepeace, A Tale of Two Lives - a graphic novel that Nick Malone is currently writing. Both draw on Nick Malone's interest in ambiguity and the possibility of dissolving planes and trapdoors opening into realms of imagination.
The walls of the main gallery are dominated by large, three-dimensional works of burnt wood and drawing on canvas that depict an inner mythology through dissolving planes. These seem to occupy a third space between drawing and sculpture, to be engaged with on their own terms of visual dynamics and broken narrative without the need to go further.
However, leading from this area is a far smaller space, a hidden room that provides a completely different environment. It refers to a moment in a graphic novel currently being written by Nick Malone - The Disappearance of Makepeace: A Tale of Two Lives - which centres around the strange disappearance and lifelong search for its mysterious hero. This moment is the visitor's entry into the hidden room that had been used by Makepeace himself, holding his sketchbooks and notes on a central table, with further work on the walls of the room, and a background soundscape of narrative and poetry* drawn from the novel.
Click below to play the soundscape.
Trapdoors into Makepeace's world open as windows cut into the pages through which other worlds of imagination can be seen. In this way the text of the graphic novel sets the exhibition within the wider context of narrative, adventure and dream, incorporating images of the works in the main gallery into an examination through story of ambiguity, dissolution and change.
This show is pivotal in the development of Nick Malone's art, from the earlier structured work such as his exhibition Bulkan Earth for the British Council Greece, through his manipulated canvases of liquid acrylic, to these new constructions with soundscape, text and narrative. This has opened up a way of working that provides a magic workshop at the interchange of observation and dream where new kinds of art can still be developed." Art Bermondsey Project Space
*Part of this text is taken from Nick Malone's prize winning book Jason Smith's Nocturnal Opera, written with the support of arts council England an published by the Cinnamon Press.
http://project-space.london/event/nick-malone-a-tale-of-two-lives
Critical essay and interview on the exhibition:
Anna McNay in Conversation with Nick Malone
Travelling through Time and Space: Meaning and Interpretation in the Work of Nick Malone