States of Play (Part II), presented by Eritage Art Projects from June 26th to August 17st, 2024 is a joint exhibition with collaborative work from eight artists: Abel B Burger (France), David Shillinglaw (United Kingdom), Expanded Eye (United Kingdom), Jamel Armand (Netherlands), Kylie Wentzel (South Africa), Mafia Tabak (Austria), Martin Daiber (Chile), and Stephen Smith (United Kingdom).

by Alexander Picoult

Curation Statement:

We all play; it is a universal requirement.

We begin our lives in a state of play and constant discovery. Encouraged to free-flow, bang the drum, bark like a dog, imagine the spoon is an aeroplane flying into your mouth..

It is playing that allows us to first touch and fully grasp the world.

Playing is problem solving; building blocks and a jigsaw puzzle piece, or the unmistakable sound of a child searching for just the right piece of Lego. Playing comes before words and is a language of its own.

“Children learn through play, adults play through art” -Brian Eno.

Playing is story telling too; imagining and exaggerating, early man scratching bison on the wall and slapping muddy hand prints to decorate a cave, making a home and sharing stories with your tribe.

Playing is lying and trickery, a card illusion or puppets performing for people in the street.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” -William Shakespeare.

As we age, we as individuals and as a species continue to play but the playing becomes more serious, there are rules. Play fighting becomes war and survival. Games become sport with losers and sacrifices. Battles play out on global political Chess boards, taking and shaking lands and lives, playing God with guns and medicines, diseases and displacement.

We gamble too, we love risk and a feeling of being lucky; the higher the stakes the greater the prize. Perhaps it is the chance of losing that makes winning so sweet and intoxicating.

We play with our bodies, all singing, all dancing, kicking and punching our way into fun and games; but ultimately it is in our brain where the playing really takes place. Our minds are playgrounds, full of fears and fantasies, when we dream we play without a second thought, making connections and joining the dots.

Whether we look to music, sport, comedy or food, it is in the human mind that the rules for play are imagined and boundaries for play are defined. There are thin lines, nuanced and contextual, what is celebrated in a boxing ring would be punishable in the street, a comedy punchline out of place could start a culture war. The way we play and the shared experience of playing is a measure of the individual and the collective human condition.

Art may be one of the few places where playing remains pure and childlike, where the winning and losing go hand in hand like two sides of the same coin. Artists push and pull the work to a point where it can not return, a place where the prize is the process itself.

In a world obsessed with being first, fast, right and rich, Art feels like one of the few places where it is safe to fail, and playing is still taken seriously without anybody getting hurt.

- David Shillinglaw

With the addition of two new artists and eleven new works, States of Play at Eritage has entered its second phase. Although the core concept of this extension is the same as the previous two months, the added works and the complete rearrangement of the space have created a new emphasis on the human body and an enhanced dialogue between the pieces.

The most notable change to the exhibition lies in Jamel Armand’s black and white mural spanning from floor to ceiling of the western wall of the gallery. The mural is made up of symbols such as human faces, snakes, hands, and skulls all drawn in a cubic or geometric manner. Armand attributes his symbolic style directly to his Indonesian heritage. His work includes a series of slightly varied yet repeated motifs reminiscent of early cave drawings and hieroglyphs.

The style, as well as Armand’s choice of subject matter immediately implies a decentralization of the orderly aesthetic and a prioritization of simple geometric forms – mainly the human body. This work, therefore, outlines a new theme for the exhibition: an appreciation of human form, stripped to its most natural and instinctual properties.

David Shillinglaw, the co-curator of States of Play joins the show as an artist and his two pieces, Common Threads I and II converse with Armand’s introduction of a hieroglyphic-like figure. The two pieces mirror each other in form and face each other on opposite ends of the eastern wall of the gallery. In this way, they frame the edges of the wall in a way that entangles all the pieces, suggesting the horizontal storyline of an early cave painting. The works themselves are created with quilted fabrics rather than paint, which requires an amalgamation of materials.

Such a construction process adds meaning to the human form; it is not a singular thing. Rather, it is formed by complex layers and enclosed by an imperfect stitching process. Shillinglaw’s decision to include fabrics in all colors, textures, and patterns emphasizes this complexity and suggests that we can find the most complex aspects of ourselves even in simple ways of self-exploration.

Following the gaze of Shillinglaw’s humanoids inward, we find the two added pieces from English duo and resident artists at Eritage, Expanded Eye. Titled Clouds In My Hands and The Sky Danced with Me, Expanded Eye’s works serve as explorations of the inner, spiritual self. Expanded Eye works in a partially three-dimensional manner, employing rope, fabrics, and varied textiles to add more intrigue and nuance to their pieces. This, in combination with Shillinglaw’s fabric constructions open a new and exciting pathway within this extended exhibition. Interestingly, Expanded Eye’s pieces also only show two-dimensional representations of the human body, similar to Armand and Shillinglaw’s works.

Expanded Eye’s style leans into the surreal, creating bodily compositions that are otherworldly and unnatural. By portraying entangled limbs and distorted facial features, the duo implies that one’s body must not be defined by the external world but rather the internal emotions that one inhabits. In this way, the body embraces its cerebral, playful elements and breaks free from the constraints of normativity.

The new arrangement of States of Play provides an intriguing, yet comforting, walkthrough experience. Martin Daiber’s The Painter remains at the front of the exhibition, with its theme of self-exploration and discovery setting the tone for the viewer’s experience. Shillinglaw’s mirrored Common Threads pieces unify the eastern wall and draw visitors into the back of the exhibition. Here, they’ll find an intimate cluster of pieces made up of Stephen Smith’s six paper assemblages, six of Abel B. Burger’s comic-like storyboards, and two of Shillinglaw’s Fabric Humanoids. This corner is defined by an orange, yellow, and all-around earthy color scheme as well as circular forms that permeate all the pieces. While all of the artists featured in this exhibition employ completely different media and techniques, it is remarkable to see such unifying similarities throughout the show, as if the walls were conversing with each other.

We invite you to explore States of Play: Part II with us until August 30th, and experience the joys found in the playful innovation of our eight contributing artists.

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Exhibition Highlight: States of Play (Part II)