photo courtesy of Pardeep Singh, Surrey Art Gallery
A Tangled Thicket
Paintings and handcrafted installations by four Surrey artists that explore the relationship between nature and the mind.
In 1877, the Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramon y Cajal referred to a specimen of human brain tissue examined under a microscope as “a tangled thicket”: a twisting, entangled complex of neurons, axons, dendrites, and synapses. The concept of the brain’s wondrous complexity appears in several works made by members of the Z.inc Artist Collective, and it is also a reflection of the Collective’s own creative production.
— Curator, Rhys Edwards
Lesley Garratt, Willa Downing, Cora Li-Leger, and Claire Moore
“In the face of ever greater automization and social stratification, Z·inc proposes a radical creative togetherness imagined through the lives of artworks and the people who make, use, and respond to them.”
— Curator, Rhys Edwards
April 5 — Exhibition opens to the Public
April 26 — Art party opening celebration
May 8 — Objects for Pondering workshop
June 7 — Exhibition tour and reading with Aislinn Hunter
June 8 — Last day of the exhibition
“Z·inc Artist Collective (Willa Downing, Lesley Garratt, Cora Li-Leger, and Claire Moore) are united by a profound passion for community, craft, natural materials, and ecological consciousness. A long-standing presence in Surrey art communities, the group has supported collaborative artmaking initiatives with an extended network of creatives and the public at large for over a decade.
A Tangled Thicket captures the ethos of connectivity that lies at the heart of Z·inc’s practice. Drawing on theories of ecology, neuroscience, and ontology (the study of being itself), each artist expounds on the interconnection between nature and the human mind and how they are embedded within and shaped by each other.”
— Curator, Rhys Edwards
Across painting, drawing, sculpture, textile, and handmade installations, each artist alludes to the porousness of the supposed boundaries that separate humans from other species, as well as the stories we tell ourselves about “nature” and our relationship with it. Citing inspirations such as the neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, ecologist Suzanne Simard, and local poet and author Aislinn Hunter, Z·inc’s works vividly capture the resonance across all forms of matter: from the biochemical schemata of plant cells and brain neurons to the mycorrhizal networks of fungi, trees, animals, people, places, families, and memories.
Elsewhere, the exhibition includes artworks that celebrate the inherent craftsmanship of each artist’s approach, emphasizing organic materials, bodily sensation, and improvisation. Interactive sculptures by Claire Cilliers and ink paintings by Lesley Garratt imagine vibrant worlds of anthropomorphic creatures that move between realms, untethered by human categories, while artist books by Cora Li-Leger and large-scale installations by Willa Downing draw attention to the synergy between consciousness and history.”
— Curator, Rhys Edwards
Poet, author and educator Aislinn Hunter has written an essay Walk-(Beauty)-Walk of her reflections on A Tangled Thicket.
Read the Stir interview with Z·inc artists about A Tangled Thicket.
Read/watch the interview with Aislinn Hunter, Willa Downing and Rhys Edwards “Words into Worlds: KPU instructor Aislinn Hunter inspires artwork in Surrey Art Gallery exhibition”.
photo courtesy of Pardeep Singh, Surrey Art Gallery