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Damien Cifelli – Welcome to Tarogramma at Moosey Hoxton, East London, 10th August 2023 – Another Thursday night openingat te Hoxton end of the Hackney Road, Damien Cifelli is, so we’re (once again) told, “a self taught, multidisciplinary artist from Edinburgh, now based in London. Damien’s work explores a fictitious land named Tarogramma”. I still haven’t worked out what this “self taught” thing everyone suddenly wants to wear like some kind of badge of honour actually means, surely we artists are all self taught? Surely saying so is stating the bleedin’ obvious? As for the fictitious land of Tarogramma, well it certainly makes for an interesting narrative, it certainly pull things together, gives some kind of sense to what Damien Cifelli is doing, illustrates something that’s in his head (unless of course he’s actually been there?). Kind of like what’s on his mind (or is it just in his mind?), his parallel universe. The big paintings hanging on the spacious gallery walls kind of feel like illustrations, whatever they are, he’s certainly taught himself to paint rather well.   

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“Referencing the scale and compositions of history paintings and historical sculpture, he has built a detailed culture with its own aesthetic, way of living, and understanding of the world; one that is at once alien, and eerily similar to our own. The paintings are a visual representation of this alternative society – documentary images of a new world. What Is Tarogramma? Shrouded from the eyes of the world, a hidden civilisation has long existed in parallel with our own. The elusive land of Tarogramma holds the promise of something far beyond our understanding. Over the course of human history Tarogramma has been discovered accidentally on several occasions. All we know about the place exists in the artefacts and images recovered from expeditions and from the detailed testimonies of the few who have returned. Using this information, a vivid picture has been built of the people and their lives. It is a place with a detailed culture; its own aesthetic, way of living, and understanding of the world. It is perhaps Tarogramma’s elusiveness that has allowed it to live long in the imagination of writers and explorers. As a result, there is no real consensus on the origin or material properties of the place. It is believed by some to be an inaccessible forgotten city, others to be an afterlife, and many to be completely fictional.”

“I use fictional anthropology, through storytelling, to examine the idea of searching – the impulse we all feel to look beyond what we know. Do we, by virtue of looking for an alternative, critique the present? And by creating a fictional world, can we hold up a mirror to ourselves? Inspired by personal histories, the creativity of the diaspora, ancestral stories and recent collective experiences, I have created a world distilled down into the simplest necessities – human connection and a sense of community. Values that have become infinitely more important in recent times. Tarogramma is a vessel for all these ideas.”

Damien Cifelli certainly can paint, there’s no disputing that fact, and if you like this world he paints. this slightly strange land of his with those slightly strange looking people live, that world that kind of looks like ours but then again doesn’t. Do that have sport there? The same rules? Does the food taste the same? Do they boil their cabbage? Do I like cabbage? Of course I do and I do like his cabbage, and that club crest on the football (is it football?) shirt, and are those fans and I do like the flags and banners and the strange unfamiliar familiarity of it all, I  thing I like this place, this land, the strange customs, is there violence? What does that say about me as  the viewer in the gallery that I ask that? Do they…? Anyway, I like this, I like this glimpse of a different world, is it really better than ours though and is someone in Tarogramma showing some not quite believable paintings of the strange people of Shoreditch and Dalston at one o the hipster galleries of their world at the moment? Actually, do these people look as strange to us here in East London as they would to say people in Edinburgh or Derby of Shropshire or Finland or Mossey’s Norwich homeland?   

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Actually Moosey seem to like strange worlds, this kind of feels a tinyt little little like that Yok show they put on in the Hoxton Arches a few years back. I kind of want to know more about Tarogramma, what else has been brought back? Do they have horns, tails, do they even know of our existence? Are we wrong to believe? Do they have cities of gold that lie in the distance? Was that somewhere else?  Is there a cookbook? Will we suddenly find a Tarogramma food stall on Broadway market? Has anyone heard any of their music, have they been influenced by any of ours?  It don’t ‘arf get you finking don’t it? I like that. I like that these paintings, these glimpses have you wondering about other lands. I kind of think I might like to go to Tarogramma, but then what if I did, would I take my germs? Would I destroy it all? Like the rats we took to new Zealand or…? I like these paintings. i wasn’t sure if I did at first but I’ve been catching myself thinking about them rather a lot since that opening night, I;ve been back a couple of times now, kind of want to know more… (sw) 

Moosey Hoxton is at The Shoreditch Exchange, Hackney Road, London E2 8GY, The gallery is open Thursday through to Sunday, 11am until 5pm. The show runs until August 27th.    

As always, do click on an image to enlarge and see the whole thing or to run the slide show…