Image: Kate Groobey, (detail) Hey, We're Making It, A3 watercolour on paper, 2021
"Bodies existing together in a space is an experience that has recently become fraught and foreign. In a time when we are used to meeting through screens or waving from a distance, the importance of contact has become all the more apparent. In having close encounters intermittently removed we have come to fully appreciate how much we crave contact and shared experiences.
And there are shared experiences in abundance in this exhibition. Wild Horses brings together 11 artists that explore a broad spectrum of relationships in all their forms. It gathers moments of togetherness but also highlights the multiplicity of relationships and the confusions therein. There are mixed messages, blurred lines and different meanings[...]
Humour and power play out in the paintings of Kate Groobey whose two figures are propelled across the surface by giant disembodied hands shoving their backsides. Above them a text reads, "HEY, WE'RE MAKING IT". Arms outstretched and naked but for their fedoras and boots, these funny ladies seem intent on getting somewhere, even if what they are actually making isn't known[...]
A powerfully female presence pervades this entire exhibition: amidst the shifting dynamics there are curved lines, flicks of eyeliner, and pink fingernails. Our relationship to the feminine seems to be yet another factor that is being investigated by this all female lineup of artists.
But we are by no means simply voyeurs who have trespassed into these secret moments of connection. These subjects have their own agency and often seem to know more than us."
-Nancy Dewe Mathews, November 2021
(read the full text here)
Nancy Dewe Mathews is a writer and host of Now Nancy on Soho Radio in London.
Wild Horses
Group show at Sim Smith, London
Open 11 - 5pm Fridays and Saturday's
or by appointment
Until 18 December 2021
6 Camberwell Passage
London, SE5 0AX
