LONDON.- “Out of Eye”: on a basic level, “out of” might simply mean “from”. Yet it is not difficult to imagine a second meaning, the suspicion of something removed, or cut out, of the eye. Going further, we might suggest a third reading: the beyond. Something out of the eye is, in part, something which lies outside the eye’s range; outside standard perception, cognition or experience.

This exhibition at Laure Genillard Gallery sees the encounter of five practices interested in cut-outs, fiction and cognitive estrangement. The works unveil lost and found narratives that reckon with their environment and frustrate our curiosity over what might lie beyond the radius of sight. Attention is paid to the activity of cutting and reconstructing images or texts as a method of freeing content from its original meaning and reappointing it to new systems of awareness. The dynamism of material, pictorial and historical relationships, together with the use of repetition and doubling, are used as strategies to terrorise and allure our attention, and confront apprehensions of reality.

Curated by Tony Tremlett

Sam Austen (London, 1986) is interested in creating an awareness of the image as a physical entity, something that wrestles with its non-physical nature, wrangling with an excessively expanding eye that flirts with both the virtual and the real. Early animated cinema, graphic novels, horror film, and science fiction are particular influences on his work. Primarily he produces 16mm films that utilise a range of in-camera multi-layered special effects, shooting an array of studio built objects, material and texts. Austen graduated from the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 2017 and Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, in 2009. Recent shows include: Image Drum, Weston Studio, Royal Academy, London 2019; Hologram Burnt On To The Retina, Farbvision, Berlin (DE) 2018; New Work II: Material, The Cob Gallery, London 2018; CHUMMING, The Pipe Factory, Glasgow 2018; Drawing Biennial 2017, The Drawing Room, London, 2017.w

Maria Cozma (Romania, 1989) studied at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna and at the Academy of Fine Arts - Städelschule, Frankfurt. Her work revolves around the topic of ‘Material Memory’ which describes the practice understanding how the body changes through writing and external factors, and what the material effects of these changes are. Thinking through this term gives Cozma the opportunity to connect the very intimate and personal to an ‘outside’, letting in as many voices as possible, and thinking about one’s own position as something which is constantly acting and being acted upon. Recent shows include: Back to them, Gärtnergasse, Vienna 2018; 40 Pest Street, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York 2017; The Blue Hour, Future Suburban Contemporary, Copenhagen 2016; Mauve, Club Pro, Los Angeles
2016.

Sebastian Jefford (Wales, 1990) works in painting, sculpture, photography and digital platforms. Amongst other things, his work deals with visual perceptions of groups of objects, that in many cases are staged by him. The tactile nature of a lot his works is often deliberately comprised by the objects’ own crappy, spurious façades and surface treatments, their complete lack of function, drawing attention to the ‘barrier’ of an image or a screen when they’re inevitably documented. Jefford graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2017, and the University of West England in 2012. Recent shows include: Procrustean Flatulence, Gianni Manhattan, Vienna 2018; CITADEL, Open Forum, Berlin, Germany 2018; Doors of Paradise, Union Pacific, London 2018; Le Bel Été, Noire Gallery, Turin, 2018; Lived In, Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger, Norway
2017; Romancing The Biscuit, Lock Up International, London 2017; Bloomberg New Contemporaries, The Bluecoat, Liverpool + ICA, London 2016.

Alex Morrison (Redruth, 1971) currently lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. He works with a variety of media including drawings, paintings, videos, sculptures and installation which underscore his interests in subcultures, rebellion and the desires to recycle aesthetic codes. His works explore the vernacular, and offer a wry sense of humour regarding the universalising tendencies of modernism. Recent shows include: Solo show at Levy Delval Gallery, Brussels 2017; Champingons at Galerie PCP, Paris 2017; solo show at Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto 2016; Trusses, Nanaimo Art Gallery, Nanaimo, Canada 2016; Cut The World Until It Fits On The Back Of Your Hand, Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto 2016; Stopping The Sun In It's Course, François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles 2015; Poetics of Space, Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada 2015.

Johanna Odersky (Germany, 1993) is interested in how forms are structured and the meanings they might give to physical space, both on a sculptural and sonic level. Her sculptural work often starts from paper cut-outs, and evidence her interest in silhouettes that separate the inside from the outside, and the mechanisms that emerge from them: inclusion, exclusion and domestication. Odersky has a desire to open up closed spaces or bodies, through which she often references horror genres — mutations, contamination, and confusion between body and its surroundings. Recent shows include: No Conformism/Alienze, Material Art Fair, Mexico City 2019; Cut-Up, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne 2018; Back to them, Gärtnergasse, Vienna 2018; A thin sliver of night, Alienze, Lausanne, 2018; Marres Currents #5: I Spy, I Spy a little lie, Marres, Maastricht 2017; INFRA, Yamamoto Gendai, Tokyo, 2017.