Apart at the seams

Featured Artists

Shadi Al-Atallah; Mote Scherr; Mathilda Roach Osborne; Yvonne Mabs Francis; Juan del Gado

Though events in the past eighteen months have rightly caused many to reflect on the systems and structures that we exist within, we have also been forced – through isolation, boredom, grief – to confront ourselves, to dwell on what we are as much as what we wish for. In these moments of introspection, the sheer expanse of consciousness can feel overwhelming. The artworks in this room face up to this and give voice to this antagonism, as well as the vast role of reflection, inherent in human experience.

BSL room description video

Room Audio Introduction

  • A landscape painting with a large figure bending over backwards touching the floor with their foot and head. The painting is dark in colour with large watery brush strokes.

    Dipped myself a little too deep
    Shadi Al-Atallah, 2021

  • A portrait painting of acrylic and pen on paper contains a black and white horse-like head appearing from a patch of brown paint in the centre of the page. Around this head on a blue and red scribbled background reads the words: “I will be gone BUT NOT FOREVER”. In the top left corner is a small white box with three amber eye-like drawings “REACHING BODYPARTS”.

    Temporary Withdrawals
    Mote Scherr, 2014

  • A portrait painting in dark reds, blues and pale pastel colours is filled with various faces in different colours looking directly at the viewer or turned away slightly. The central face has bright blue hair and piercing pale eyes.

    Banquet of Floating Heads
    Mathilda Roach Osborne, 2021

  • A brightly coloured portrait painting containing intricate imagery of foetuses, roots, and fish. In the centre is a detached head rooted into the ground below. Above the head sits a pink arch that reads: “impossibility of being inside the brain of someone living”.

    The Impossibility of Being in the Brain of Someone Living
    Yvonne Mabs Francis, 2003

  • A brightly coloured portrait painting that has a large bell jar in the centre. A baby sits inside the bell jar holding onto a chain. Behind the jar is a blue sea and starry sky covered in intricate patterns.

    Inside the Bell Jar
    Yvonne Mabs Francis, 2017

  • A black portrait cork board painted black is covered in bronze coloured blobs, each decorated with white circles and dots. There are also larger white dots in between the bronze blobs. The artwork is full to the edge of the cork board with these shapes and dots.

    The Unifying Search for the Missing Piece
    Mote Scherr, 2020

  • An empty gloomy corridor is lit by long ceiling lights overhead. Down both sides are multiple doorways with two open doors at the end of the corridor.
  • An expanse of water fills the image. At the top of the image is a distorted reflection of a building in pale brick. The water is very still.
  • In the corner of a room where two walls meet, blue paint peels from the surface to show the white wall beneath. Curls of peeled paint gather in a pile on the brown floor below.
  • A drawer is pulled open to reveal fifteen thumbs cast in a pale material. The drawer is  orange and red in the glowing light. Smaller drawers are visible inside this larger open drawer.
  • Parallel to the road, lining the pavement, is a tall corrugated sheet of metal standing on end. It fills the image. The road is just visible at the bottom of the image with a building and trees behind the sheet metal. A small no entry sign in red and white is on the wall to the right of the metal.

Living through the precarity of everyday
Juan delGado, 2020