Group Exhibition“Interceptions”

“Interceptions" brings together paintings, photography and sculptural works to shape an ever evolving storyline that is deliberately indeterminate and always subject to change.

Matter Gallery is pleased to present “Interceptions”, a group exhibition featuring five diverse contemporary artists from Southern and Western Africa, including Helen Teede, Simon Back, Jake Michael Singer, The Nest Collective and Siwa Mgoboza.

“Interceptions" brings together paintings, photography and sculptural works to shape an ever evolving storyline that is deliberately indeterminate and always subject to change. Abstract and hypnogogic gestures across each medium suggest the possibility of fluid interpretation without finality.

Themes of time, memory and aspiration are explored throughout the exhibition. Large scale paintings of spontaneous and uninhibited movement join meditative works composed of thick white planes of paint layered above washed forms and shapes. Expressive and richly colorful photography continue this narrative by way of repetitive sequences set behind depictions of human-like beings at play in their built environments. Sculptures punctuate the exhibition with conceptual forms made from repurposed metals, melted plastic and high-grade steel.

About the artists:

Helen Teede is an abstract painter living and working in her home-country of Zimbabwe. Using the natural landscape as a point of departure, her work is an exploration of the ways in which the earth's surface can act as a teller of stories and symptom of circumstance.

Jake Michael Singer is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, photography and drawing. Using materials related to the built environment such as concrete, steel, glass, silicone and plastic; science fiction and dystopian landscapes are a recurring theme throughout his work.

The Nest Collective is a collective of ten multidisciplinary artists from Kenya who characterize their work as exploring troubling modern identities, reimagining the past and remixing the future. 

Simon Back is a painter from Zimbabwe living and working in Mauritius whose work evokes a relationship between humans and their landscapes that is simultaneously nourishing and precarious. 

Siwa Mgoboza is a young multidisciplinary artist from South Africa who explores notions of difference and belonging as informed by his personal experiences of prejudice and assimilation.