Paul Edmunds

Tone

14 April - 21 May 2011

Michael Stevenson is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by Paul Edmunds.

As Edmunds observes, many of us have a long and close relationship with music. From elements which are often non-narrative, mostly repetitive and largely abstract, we extract or assemble meaningful experience, repeatedly. In a series of pencil drawings, a linocut and two sculptures, Edmunds uses only line and its sculptural equivalent, edge, to explore visual correspondents for music and sound, and their constituent parts.

The works vary little in scale and are largely monochromatic, affording an undistracted experience of limited variables. While each piece is carefully planned and executed, the lines and edges also perform on their own: they cross, congregate and avoid each other in unpredictable ways.

Like music, the works reward and thwart expectations, as overlaid lines and stacked edges produce tone, timbre, volume and contrast. Each line, and each cluster of lines, embodies attack and decay, constructs echo and reverberation, harmony and dissonance. Areas of silence contrast with places of tension. The resulting images are evocative and allusive, and invite the viewer to construct their experience of the work.

Edmunds acknowledges the influence, in these works, of Sol LeWitt's wall drawings from the 1960s and 70s which he saw at Dia: Beacon outside New York while on an Ampersand residency in 2010, as well as Walter Oltmann's drawings of baskets which he became familiar with as a student.

Born in 1970, Edmunds has exhibited consistently in South Africa since graduating with an MAFA from the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg in 1995. His first solo exhibition at Michael Stevenson, Subtropicalia, took place in 2009. He will have his first New York solo at RH Gallery later this year, and took part in that gallery's opening group exhibition, The Third Meaning, in 2010. His work is included on the current exhibition Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (23 March to 14 August 2011).

Edmunds will exhibit concurrently with Penny Siopis and Lerato Shadi.

The exhibition opens on Thursday 14 April, 6-8pm.

The gallery is open from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday 10am to 1pm.