Anousha Payne
06 September - 07 October 2023
Deli Gallery, New York
For a few years now, a creature appears in the garden. It stays close by and visits often; remaining elusive and often out of sight. - Anousha Payne, ‘Gravity of Fur’.
Underpinning Anousha Payne’s practice is an ongoing fascination with storytelling. In a fictional story written by the artist, a woman falls in love with an imagined creature living in her back garden. The creature takes shape as a soft form, more reptilian than human; it possesses an iridescent sheen that reflects in the light; its eyes are long and wide apart, stretching downwards rather than outwards—held up by short legs, that intentionally keep it close to the ground. The creature visits daily and the pair spend hours in each other's company. After each visit the creature retreats to the mud, slithering back into the dark earthy tones of the soil and laying to rest alongside neighbouring molluscs. With time, the language-less intimacy builds and the relationship between the pair deepens. They become one and come to exist out of necessity; an imagined companion conceived to combat loneliness.
Elongated forms drip off one of the figures, recurring throughout the exhibition to symbolise the creature's presence. Absorbing a state of temporality, this warping intangibly floats away from the body - in a fleeting moment. Much like a shadow, these features suggest an obstruction of light; a conceptual blind spot of the psyche, a space for emotions to become trapped and for reflections of the self to be cast. In Tender Mooring, Payne explores notions of the self, through inner dialogue. A dialogue that although uniquely individual, takes place in a space we all share - our minds and bodies. Questioning the very narrative that lives within us all; our story, our history and our journey of self-discovery.
Facing one another with arms up and at times crossed in close contact, the figures perform whilst the viewer observes. Taken from a selection of martial arts poses, here we watch the protagonist battling herself, and we see the various movements between the woman and her reflection - the creature. Soft lines and rounded forms enable energy to flow through each of the figures, leading the eye around bends and meandering through the subtle spacing between the figures and their background. This dreamlike lucidity is echoed in the use of Payne’s clouded palette, where hazy tones and an absence of description provide space for wonder and introspection. Payne’s works on canvas allow for a more intangible language to come to the surface, illustrating the illusive qualities of her characters and giving space for the artist to build an ethereal environment for their existence. Set within the garden, the backgrounds of her paintings suffuse warm and muted tones, suggestive of the earth's soil. Flecks of brighter colours pop out as flora in the indistinct hues of the background, some more prominent than others. Rather than depicting the scene as a background, Payne invites us into the movement of the battle. An intentional blur captures the movement in the background as seen from the perspective of the figures. Colours fly and whirl around in motion, spinning, flipping and changing direction, poetically capturing the perplexities of searching for one’s soul.
Echoing this inner dialogue, Payne’s practice follows a conversation between mediums. Working with multiple materials allows for a more enriching narrative to be depicted; where paintings cone to form external environments and sculptures enter our physical space and remind us of our bodies. In both mediums a duality is at play, a set of two, a pair, a couple, reinforcing the idea of the physical self and the psychological self. Wooden limbs in pairs entwined in an embrace, with feet facing inwards and heads coming to rest forehead to forehead. An embrace, a hug, a closeness. As the relationship develops within the narrative and the protagonist begins to comprehend her reality, the idea of the creature begins to dissipate. With this, the figures begin to dissolve, eventually ceasing to exist. Coming undone within the loose gestures of paint and gaps left between body parts, for molluscs to inhabit; leaving a narrative waiting to be realised.
Giving the exhibition its title, Tender Mooring, is about finding one’s self, one’s home and discovering where we choose to tether our bodies.
︎ Exhibition: Deli Gallery
Installation Views: Anousha Payne, Tender Mooring, 06 September - 07 October 2023, Deli Gallery, New York.