R E S O N A T E
Resonance is Ubicua's latest project, working with Mark Francis and Andy Cowton.
This set of paintings is primarily inspired by sound, but not necessarily always audible sound. These paintings are also inspired by graphic charts depicting information on numerous topics that, as a result, look like sound wave diagrams.
Sound is a constitutive element in Francis’ paintings. Cowton engages to his work, interweaving sound and creating a site where the visual and sound have the opportunity to expand, affect each other and be perceived beyond their respective disciplines.
Common actions and analogies, from the physical movement in the production of both painting and sound as well as elements such as tension, space, time, vibration, texture, colour, form and harmony are played and explored. In Shaw's words, "the sustained sound interacts with the environmental space, the focus on the temporal nature of music is offset and replaced by the occupation of space, a transgression from the borders of the aural to the border of the visual. In addition, a sound of certain volume - the dynamic is also not specified - can become almost palpable and corporeal when the body is vibrated by its air pressure waves”. Sound and painting in a state of flux giving life to a new Corps Sonore that Resonates.
Mark Francis
We can agree, Francis’ painting renders the invisible visible, vibrating like a signal (vector, scalar, electric, magnetic), recording energy, waves.His painting is a sort of particle detector of phenomena invisible to the naked eye, we might say quantum. It has the appearance of exact and polished realism on account of its precision, its technique, its constituent attention to details painted with an obsession that would delight a 17th-century Flemish still-life painter.
Francis stands as one of the most contemporary painters of the moment, in step with the most technologically advanced means of measurement of what takes place within the subtlest layers of matter. He is not contemporary because he depicts political, social or media reality, but rather because he equates painting with the most innovative means of researching the fundamental principles of our sense experience, as if it were a high- definition scanner that imprints the deep structure of phenomena on its reflective surfaces.
Francis’ proposition has been simply to see the fabric of painting in a new way, refocus his observation of it, or perhaps, more simply, pose himself the problem of painting as something to be seen and be a means of seeing reality at the same time. Hence it no longer makes sense to talk about abstraction and figuration.
Marco Tonelli, Mark Francis: New Vision, New Real
Andy Cowton
Composer
Having originally trained as a dancer at Dartington College of Arts, Cowton switched to composing after studying electro acoustic music at Morley College and performing with the industrial agitprop percussion group Test Dept.
Since then, Andy has been working as a composer for more than 30 years combining electronics with instrumental and found sound. The work is contextual, adapting and responding to contemporary dance, narrative film or visual arts.
Cowton's work happens between mediums, it is here essentially that a sonic landscape is discovered, each work presenting different questions; different possibilities.
In this work with Mark Francis, essentially, sound or music becomes as much a physical phenomenon as an acoustic one, something to be perceived spatially and kinetically as well as aurally.
Recently Andy has composed on the 2020 Netflix series The Surgeons Cut which received a BAFTA amongst other awards. Dying to Divorce: a documentary, received many awards in 2021 and was nominated for the BAFTAs and the Oscars.
As a composer for contemporary dance he has written for numerous companies, most notably for Russell Maliphant whose works include Push & Two with Silvie Guillem which received Olivier and South Bank Awards.
Lest We Forget for the English National Ballet was scored for electronics and live orchestra.
Lessons of the Hour by Isaac Julien is a multi-screen video installation, recently screened in Piccadilly Circus as part of London Major Art Takeover.
Ride an animation short by Paul Bush received numerous awards including best sound design at Ottawa Animation Festival. Leonora Carrington : The Lost Surrealist won the Grierson award for Best Arts Documentary and an RTS award 2018. Transitions: a film by Jannane-An-Ali was commissioned for the opening of the National Museum of Qatar.
Patricia Bossio
Patricia has worked as an artistic director and multidisciplinary performing arts curator for over 30 years, initially setting up a venue dedicated to chamber music in Buenos Aires, attracting leading international talent from Latin America, the ex Soviet Union and Europe. As part of her multidisciplinary performance works ‘Urban Encounters’ she has invited leading world composers such as Tim Garland, Jorge Bosso, and Alexander Balanescu amongst others, and film makers including Henry Singer and Adam Finch, touring the UK and Europe.
Ubicua Gallery her latest project is a new space dedicated to create conversations between artists across cultures and disciplines. Seeking interactions between visual artists, performers, musicians and academics exploring within a new shared space of mutually informing practices, new possible forms and meanings to be unfolded.