Surface, Series, Signs

This exhibition brings together three artists, Pamela Clarkson Kwami, Tayler Fisher and Andrew North, who are based at the Modern Painters, New Decorators (MPND) arts organisation in Loughborough. They are joined by Derek Hampson, from Wollaton Street Studios, Nottingham. The four met in April, 2023, when Hampson delivered a talk, at MPND, on the French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze (1925 - 1995)

Deleuze, who has been described as “one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century,” has had a major influence on many areas of contemporary thought and opinion; from politics to social justice activism. A further area of influence has been in relation to culture, in particular art and cinema. Deleuze has written books on artists, including Francis Bacon, and two books on cinema.

For Deleuze, the importance of modern art is that it allows us to escape from orthodoxies of thinking; it does this when it creates paradoxes, which force us to think. Hampson’s talk focused on this aspect of Deleuze’s work, citing writers and artists such as Raymond Roussel, Marcel Duchamp and Sigmar Polke; many of whose works deal in paradoxes.

Following this talk, the four artists had further meetings, where they explored other areas of Deleuze’s thinking; from these meetings, two themes emerged as particularly relevant to their practices: series and surface. A series creates a paradox when it arranges things in a line. Underneath this line, two more series are hidden, which are put into communication by what Deleuze calls a “paradoxical entity.” This is something outside of both, which connects them together. The surface is where the signs of this communication appear. This is not only the physical surface, but also the surface of thought; for, as Deleuze says, “everything that happens, happens at the surface.”

Surface, Series, Signs is the next stage in the artists’ exploration of Deleuze’s thinking. This exhibition explores both series and surface through the works displayed. Artworks are arranged in a number of different series (see below). Each series is energised by other works in the exhibition, which therefore act as paradoxical entities. All works emphasise their surface, as the primary point of contact with the viewer, whose thoughts are signs of the artworks’ series in communication.

Deleuze’s concepts of surface and series