Starting Here by Jo Elbourne

Exhibition

This series of works by artist Jo Elbourne asks: “If you paused here, now, for a moment, if you noticed your own way of seeing – and sensing, what might that look like?”

Using the poem You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford as a jumping off point, Elbourne echoes Stafford’s direct and intimate address by transmuting the poet’s readable, soft-spoken tone into her own work. Also plainspoken, articulate, poetic, the works offer an invitation to gently interrogate our rational and sensual responses to time and experience, starting here.

Made using an apparently restrictive technique, Elbourne’s method allows for movement only in lateral or medial directions, forming a sequence of decisions fixed with readable clarity in coloured yarn. Within these constraints Elbourne manages to zig and zag across the picture plane, bringing out images of subtle depth and complexity. They read as blocks of abstraction or architectural landscapes, or both –  ambiguous, minimal.

Unemphatic references to de Chirico’s dreamlike scenes and the ‘emotional architecture’ of Luis Barragán seem written in the images. Umbilically aligned with the precision of craft, the works sit apart from art trends and even, momentarily, outside politics, asking only to connect.

What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here?

– text by Paul Rousseau – writer/researcher

About Jo Elbourne

Jo Elbourne lives and works in Margate and is represented by M.A.H Gallery in London and Otomys in Melbourne.

These works will be available for purchase after the close of the exhibition in February 2023.

More details at www.jorobynelbourne.com

Instagram @j.elbourne

19th December 2022- 10th February 2023