Emergence is a nebulous idea. It is perhaps best articulated as a list of ideas: coming up, coming out, coming to light. Revealing, uncovering, disclosing. Quietly, slowly, gradually.
“As an alchemist converts one element into another, Gauguin believed in the artist’s ability to take raw materials and transform them into something entirely new.”
This exhibition is now closed. Available works can be found on our website
19th Century philosopher G. H. Lewes gave the term a more narrow definition. He said that emergence happens when something that isn’t suggested by its constituent parts comes into being. Something new and unanticipated. For example, a lone ant has limited capacity to reason and isn’t capable of accomplishing much, but ant colonies have a sort of group-intelligence that helps them to complete complex tasks. When they come together, this intelligence emerges.
Paul Gauguin spoke of the artist as an alchemist, using their materials to create an entirely new entity. Nothing in the oil, pigment, linen canvas and wooden stretcher that make up a painting suggests the profound effect it can have on a viewer. Looking at these components for creation, it is not possible to anticipate what their sum might be at the artist’s hands.
The artworks in this exhibition, all by new artists to Rise Art’s roster, can be thought of as illustrations of the way that something new and significant comes to exist through the combination of unassuming parts. Furthermore, in the exhibition itself each work becomes a constituent part of a wider impression. This impression will vary between different viewers, each picking up different ingredients from each artwork and mentally combining them using a different recipe.
What emerges, though, will always be greater than and different to its components. It will not be reducible to their sum or their difference. It will come up, come out, come to light. Be revealed, uncovered, disclosed. Quietly, slowly, gradually.
Oil on panel - 30 x 30cm
“Kaleidoscopic fragments are recomposed into images that seem to have a corresponding reality of their own.”
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29 July – 17 Sept 2021
Oil on panel - 30 x 30cm
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L – R: LUCAS PERTILE
L – R: SABRINA SHAH
L – R: JACK HUGHES
19th Century philosopher G. H. Lewes gave the term a more narrow definition. He said that emergence happens when something that isn’t suggested by its constituent parts comes into being. Something new and unanticipated. For example, a lone ant has limited capacity to reason and isn’t capable of accomplishing much, but ant colonies have a sort of group-intelligence that helps them to complete complex tasks. When they come together, this intelligence emerges.
Paul Gauguin spoke of the artist as an alchemist, using their materials to create an entirely new entity. Nothing in the oil, pigment, linen canvas and wooden stretcher that make up a painting suggests the profound effect it can have on a viewer. Looking at these components for creation, it is not possible to anticipate what their sum might be at the artist’s hands.
The artworks in this exhibition, all by new artists to Rise Art’s roster, can be thought of as illustrations of the way that something new and significant comes to exist through the combination of unassuming parts. Furthermore, in the exhibition itself each work becomes a constituent part of a wider impression. This impression will vary between different viewers, each picking up different ingredients from each artwork and mentally combining them using a different recipe.
What emerges, though, will always be greater than and different to its components. It will not be reducible to their sum or their difference. It will come up, come out, come to light. Be revealed, uncovered, disclosed. Quietly, slowly, gradually.
Kaleidoscopic fragments are recomposed into images that seem to have a corresponding reality of their own.
HARRIET GILLETT, Aurora, 2021
Mixed media on canvas | 120 x 100 cm | learn more
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As an alchemist converts one element into another, Gauguin believed in the artist’s ability to take raw materials and transform them into something entirely new.
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JACK HUGHES, Still Life (May 2021), 2021
Oil , Oil pastel on canvas | 132 x 112 cm | learn more
Group Exhibition