Artists

Richard Porter

Press release

There are a Million of things, perhaps in the Universe, that would require a Million of different Organs for you to understand them...should I attempt to explain to you what I perceive as the Senses, you would represent it to yourself as something that may be Heard, Seen, Felt, Smelt or Tasted, and yet it is no such thing.  
A Voyage to the Moon, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1649 

Richard Porter’s exhibition '2', his second with the gallery, is presented in two divided spaces. It   features ceramic sculptures and wall-based work, including painting and collage. His work   recalibrates our sense of human scale to accommodate the non-human, as tiny birds settle in   miniature ruins or perch beside a human nose, while rabbits emerge from clay rubble or settle   beside pink dice. Instead of losing ourselves in nature, nature loses itself in us. Many of his   paintings suggest conduits to an alternate plane: a flattened blue sky through a broken window,   or a rainbow sunset beyond a chequered floor. His collage works are derived from found musical   scores, cut up to make sparse vignettes with elemental shapes and figures.

Porter’s interest in an alternative spirituality and the unknown is informed by medieval   conceptions of the firmament, a mystical divine space that protects the world. Spirituality for   him is a belief in something that transcends all things. Formless and universal, it carries with it a   sense of wonder and of the infinite. The duality between this interest in the spiritual and the   handmade, material facture of the work is at the core of this exhibition. His work appeals to the   emotions and strives to configure a queer space that is open and free from conventional   constrictions.

The exhibition is accompanied by a text from Robert Glück.

Production by Ross Chalmers