Category: Art
Sista Pratesi, The Shining of our Design II, 2013
In her new solo exhibition at Vane, The Shining of Our Design, Sista Pratesi creates an installation of paintings that explore the power of belief systems and the structures that are created to enforce them.
'The installation presents both a pictorial space – depicted in the paintings – as well as a physical space through which the audience can move: as the paintings depict an experience, the physical structure creates an experience. A framework constructed of canvases facing in alternating directions winds through the gallery, inviting the viewer to meander along its serpentine length.
The desire to let go and succumb to a belief system that is all seeing and all encompassing is deeply hypnotic. Unfolding in these paintings is the subtle temptation to give up one’s own autonomy in the face of surrounding systems of power and control. Some show strange, lurking figures that seem involved in some arcane ritual, wholly intent on their own mysterious actions, while interspersed with these are images of doors – but doors that are warped and damaged and offer only a pretence of escape. Like a hall of mirrors, there seems no way out, but an endless journey between an interior and exterior world that surrounds and engulfs the viewer.'
Exhibition preview: Friday 8 November, 5:30-7:30pm
Opening times: 12pm to 5pm, Wednesday to Saturday during exhibitions.
Sista Pratesi, The Shining of our Design III, 2013
Sista Pratesi, The Shining of our Design I, 2013