Amelia’s Magazine | It’s full of stars: ‘Beyond Ourselves’ art exhibition at the Royal Society


All matter is the same – Geraldine Cox

The little sculpture seems to be made of paper, page like those slightly porous egg cartons, sildenafil and the shape brings to mind Luke Skywalker’s home on the planet Tatooine. I have no idea what to make of it before it occurs to me to peer in through the little hole. And then everything changes – the odd little thing is bursting with stars, pill it’s like the entire night sky exists inside. I look down at the programme and there it is: ‘It’s full of stars’, it’s even the title of the piece. Ah! Very clever, Chris Dunseath. This is the Royal Society, over there is a piece of Newton’s apple tree, and we are all, quite literally, startdust.


It’s full of stars – Chris Dunseath

Beyond Ourselves’ presents six contemporary artists, showing their work at the Royal Society just by St. James’s Park. Scientific inquiry is the heart and soul of the Royal Society, whereas art is usually a more subjective matter; what they have in common is that both scientists and artists are trying to make sense of the world.


Philosophers’ notepads – Sam Knowles

Sam Knowles has made stars out of exercise books, fanning them out on the wall. The programme talks about the self-reflection and absurdity that follows as science and philosophy theories are constantly revised and debunked; it’s even possible our perception of reality is flawed because the universe may be so much more complex and extraordinary than we can ever imagine. Whoa. Maybe all knowledge is temporary, I think as I walk up the stairs. And there are all these philosophical theories out there, but most people have hardly read any of them and so we just walk around making our own. Do we make up the same ones? Hm. … You can’t help but have these kinds of thoughts in a place that has stars in jars.


Untitled – David Rickard

The Royal Society originated as an ‘invisible college’ of natural philosophers, and last year celebrated its 350th anniversary. Upstairs are busts of Newton and pals, angels on the ceiling and the smell of old books. But this is not a museum: today’s papers are stacked on a shelf, presumably overseen by the addressee, librarian Rupert Baker. In the hall are photo albums from the Royal Society Sleeping Sickness Commission in Uganda in 1908: ‘Natives making sun-baked bricks for building our laboratory’, the picture caption reads, ‘Kasu, Nyasaland’. Further up are examples of research discussed at recent Society meetings: ‘The new science of aging’, ‘Handling uncertainty in science’, ‘The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society’. According to the study, 44% of us are believers.


The Royal Society

Sam Knowles’ other piece, ‘The approach to painting’, is a beautiful tiny little thing, tucked away in the stairwell. It’s a page of a book, painted with the night sky. There are stars everywhere in this exhibition, kept safe indoors as the London light-pollution means we don’t get to see many stars in their natural habitat. Outside it is still warm, the sky is a dense, deep blue and there is not a speck of starlight. Big Ben and the London Eye are lit up, and red, green and yellow lights flash from an airplane passing overhead. I really want to go find a field somewhere and see the real stars, but as I carry my bike back down the stars to the park I’m thinking maybe this city is so vast we don’t really need the stars to make us feel … whatever it is stars make us feel. I don’t know what it is but I know it’s something.


The approach to painting – Sam Knowles

Beyond Ourselves’ is at the Royal Society until 24th June – see our listing for details.

Categories ,Agata Agatowska, ,art, ,Beyond Ourselves, ,Chooc Ly Tan, ,Chris Dunseath, ,David Rickard, ,Geraldine Cox, ,london, ,Newton, ,Sam Knowles, ,science, ,sky, ,St James’s Park, ,stars, ,The Royal Society

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Amelia’s Magazine | The eye at the centre: An interview with artist Sam Knowles

Portrait of the Artist (manipulated found book page)

I’m a little early for my meeting with Sam Knowles, look giving me a chance to wander the rooms of the Simon Oldfield Gallery by myself for a while. This means I’m all immersed by the time the artist arrives, cheapest slightly shy as he asks me what I think. For a moment I feel self-conscious at sharing my thoughts; this is a public gallery but what happens on the walls feels oddly private. But however personal the experience of viewing the art may be to the audience, viagra order this is Knowles’ first solo exhibition so it’s probably infinitely more precious to him.

The fact that the artwork is quite small in scale means you have to get quite close to take it in, adding to the sense of intimacy. But there’s something else to it as well, it’s a feeling that comes as you’re standing there, squinting, craning, wondering. The title of the exhibition is a reference to a quote by Pascal: ‘Nature is an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.’ It was Borges who called it a ‘Fearful Sphere’ in an essay discussing Pascal – just as Knowles makes his art from found materials, all these different elements are pieced together and subtly manipulated to hint at something else, something bigger, to some sort of truth we think is there but we can’t see or touch.

The Prisoner (gold leaf on found book page)

It’s the grand themes of metaphysics, philosophy and science that lie at the core of Knowles’ practice. ‘Metaphysics has to do with universal principles that helps you understand the world. While metaphysics is concerned with science, it also has a lot to do with God, as in, the idea that there are pre-ordained rules for things. That is how I see it, although others may not agree,’ Knowles explains as we sit down for a chat. Knowles is a keen reader of philosophy, and as we talk it becomes clear how the art incorporates many layers of meaning. Still, Knowles stresses how he wants the audience to feel free to interpret what they see in their own way: ‘I like leaving things to interpretation, and not give people strict ideas of what to think.’

Knowles’ titles are usually drawn from the topics in the old books that provide the base for the artwork, such as ‘Orbit’, ‘The Great Enterprise’ and ‘On the Nature of the Universe’. The common thread is a reference to a centre – it’s there as a halo around the ballerina’s head, it’s the point from which gold rays emerge, it’s the eye that remains still in the middle of swirled-paper vortex. ‘In Byzantine portraits, you’ll find that halos are perfectly centred on the right eye. There’s this idea that the eye is taking everything in, and it’s a bit arrogant, really. I wanted to contradict this idea.’

On the Nature of the Universe (manipulated found book, gold pin, wood and acrylic)

While Knowles is happy to explain the theoretical concepts when prompted, I should point out there is actually very little about the 27-year-old that suggests stuffy professor. While he’s eager to talk about his work, he asks me almost as many questions as I ask him. As we get sidetracked from talking about inspiration, Knowles breaks out of the artist-slash-philosopher mode for a moment when he tells me a story about his girlfriend; ‘Oh but don’t put that in!’

Back to the topic of inspiration, he admits to borrowing from many sources: ‘I take a lot of different things from different people, in fact a tutor once described me as a magpie,’ says Knowles, who graduated from Wimbledon College of Art in 2009. ‘But most of my inspiration comes from reading, fundamentally. I find objects, mainly books, and I spend ages searching for the right ones, looking for imagery that will work and then coming up with an idea. I sit endlessly in my studio, a tiny room with stacks and stacks of books, and go through piles of images. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all, it needs to be in that moment.’

One of the largest pieces in the show is called ‘Fundamental Principals of Metaphysics of Ethics’, where Knowles has laid out all the pages of a book by this name: ‘I absolutely loved that title.’ Painted in gold is a reproduction of Gustave Doré’s White Rose, an illustration from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Knowles has fractured the image so it’s up to the viewer’s to make a judgment about what it is, but in the right light you can still see the angels, circling the sun. ‘Sometimes a piece can come really quickly, but this one took time as I kept changing the idea,’ says Knowles, as we’re crouching down to catch the light reflecting off the gold. ‘I wanted the artworks in this exhibition to interact with each other. That was very important to me; the circle, the eye at the centre.’

Fundamental Principals of the Metaphysic of Ethics (gold leaf on found book pages)

Sam Knowles’ Fearful Sphere is showing until 11th June at the Simon Oldfield Gallery in Covent Garden, London. For more information see our listing.

Sam Knowles is also part of Beyond Ourselves, an exhibition showing at the Royal Society until 22 June. Read our review here.

Categories ,art, ,Beyond Ourselves, ,Borges, ,Covent Garden, ,Dante, ,Doré’s White Rose, ,Fearful Sphere, ,london, ,metaphysics, ,Pascal, ,philosophy, ,royal society, ,Sam Knowles, ,science, ,Simon Oldfield Gallery, ,Wimbledon college of art

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