SARAH GRAINGER-JONES and LILI SPAIN, The Witching Hour at Studio 1.1, November 2018

Cutting through Redchurch street isn’t as exciting as it once was, there was a time when it was vital to do so, when you wouldn’t dream of taking another route to Brick Lane for fear of missing something/ Redchurch Street, like her sister, Vyner Street, was once so alive with galleries, with artist-led shows, with a pop up on this corner, a throw up on that. The Shoreditch street is rather depressing now, the very deliberate grey-washing of the walls, the almost arrogant takeover of the expensive designer label shops the soulless Appear Here twist of it all, gentrification where once there was so so much creativity, Redchurch Street is depressing now.

SARAH GRAINGER-JONES and LILI SPAIN, The Witching Hour at Studio 1.1, November 2018

Redchurch Street is depressing now other than that one defiant red door, that last space standing, that bright red beacon that is the open red door of Studio 1.1,  We tell you all this by way of explaining that we very nearly missed this one, the fact that nothing much takes us to the once so alive street now, that we actively avoid it, we’re angered by it, that coupled with the fact that we’d seen no publicity about this rather excellent show meant that we very nearly missed it. The show has closed now, apparently it opened back at the end of October, it closed last weekend (we do like to get these bites of coverage up on line while the shows are still happening). We just happened to be cutting through, the red door was open (as it so often is, a gallery that keeps the door open, a sign outside, how refreshing!), let’s have a quick look, oh Lili Spain! Lili Spain’s piece are always interesting….

SARAH GRAINGER-JONES and LILI SPAIN, The Witching Hour at Studio 1.1, November 2018

Lili Spain is an intriguing artist, an exciting artist, here constructions, should we call then constructions? Her assemblage, her joining of things, her grafts, her pieces are always exciting, Lili is sharing the small white-walled space with Sarah Granger-Jones, they clearly work very very well together, it isn’t that clear who has actually created what, it looks exciting, it looks like ritual, it looks like things are about to happen, that things have already happened, hints of many things. Alas there was no time to stick around for the final performance piece of the show, rushing about again, the morning had been spent carefully hanging (never dropping) more of the #365ArtDrop18 pieces around East London, we were hastily cutting through Redchurch Street on our way to an afternoon Sax Ruin performance at Cafe Oto up in Dalston, there;s always somewhere else to be. It looked like something rather exciting was about to happen, pieces ready for another performance of some kind, the work of both artists looked exciting, damn, it looked like it would be worth sticking around for the performance, it was certainly worth dropping in to see the show and the work on the walls, the two on them had used the slightly awkward space so well. A gallery alive, the walls were exciting, the pieces intriguing, intrigue clearly is a key word with both of there artists, intriguing exciting art. Looks like we only just caught the end of a damn fine show, the pieces on the wall looked thrilling, some of it slightly dark, some of it beautiful, some of it clearly needed a lot more of our time, detail to explore, the whole body of work looked so, well, it looked so intriguing, yes, intriguing really was the word – beautifully dark, beautifully intriguing, exciting – always good to encounter the work of Lili Spain and we clearly need to pay more attention to whatever Sarah Granger-Jones may do next., damn, I wish there had been more time, excellent art show, intriguing/ . (sw)

Studio 1,1 / Lili Spain / Sarah Granger-Jones

SARAH GRAINGER-JONES and LILI SPAIN, The Witching Hour at Studio 1.1, November 2018

Here’s what the gallery had to say about the show via their website…

The Witching Hour – a time of transition, when things go awry and the uncanny comes out to play. The point between sleeping and waking: when the mind can be tricked, when the vividness of dreams seeps into the conscious world and entwines with the unconscious, making reality seem out of kilter. The artists share an interest in psychoanalysis and the occult. A dualistic shifting unconscious informs their use of cyclical repetition, whereby performative actions and personal ritual bring on transformation, both of objects and self.

The embedded, perceived histories of objects are used to create new mythologies. Domestic everyday objects are brought into the gallery space and used in performances and installations, dislocating their functionality. They become transitional; waiting for circumstance, chance and coincidence to determine their fate. The show will feature new sculptural, installation and 2D works, with a series of live performances in which ritual actions change the space, and new works come into being as the exhibition progresses.

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