Toby Paterson: Penumbralism

Exhibition:

20th April – 7th May 2018 @ Civic House
Preview – Thurs 19th April, 5pm – 7.30pm

Event: Toby Paterson Artist Talk & Conversation with Jude Barber:

Tues 24th April, 6.30-8.30pm @ Civic House
This event is free but ticketed. More info and RSVP here 

About the project:

Developed for 2018‘s Glasgow International festival of contemporary art, this project finds its impetus in the many ‘grey areas’ of townscape that continue to define the visual and spatial experience of the city of Glasgow. Whilst apparently neatly resolved districts and keynote buildings are held to convey the image of the city, this project looks at the obverse; locations that represent the unresolved, the overlooked or the simply discarded. Built around an installation of new painting and sculptural work by Toby Paterson, an artist with a long held interest in teasing out the subjective perspectives of cities, it aims to make palpable the experience of built environments while considering in parallel the forces that brought them into being.

Paterson has previously addressed specific sites and pieces of architecture that might be considered as having penumbral qualities, delineating the inertia that is the unspoken consequence of generations of large-scale urban reordering. In this case, he draws on the hardened quality of everyday places that have been left to stagnate by unrelenting change elsewhere. Despite their frequent proximity to densely populated districts, these sites retain a resolute blankness that denies establishment of fresh civic identity. Penumbralism aims to extract something tangible out of these spatial and psychological vacuums.

Penumbralism is a collaborative initiative between Toby Paterson and Agile City. Driving it is a common interest in urban development, albeit one being approached from different perspectives. The project is explicitly underpinned by the venue’s Cowcaddens context, thus having a direct impact on both the form and the ultimate mode of reception of the work itself.

Produced by Agile City

Supported by: Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art,  Creative Scotland, Hope Scott Trust