, Zurich Welsh artist Steven Emmanuel presents a series of new works created especially for the exhibition at message salon. “Somewhere along the way” poses questions about art and life. The art public recognises the typical references to contemporary art in the exhibition space: picture frames and glass, plinths, white paint, painted canvases and readymades, pencil drawings and photographic paper. The installation shows ideas and concepts transformed into materials that take on art, its history and representation.
Steven Emmanuel’s artworks are artefacts in the moment of making, of the process. From this perspective, the artist is a transformer, driven by intuition and creativity. The exhibited work in turn only becomes complete in the mind of the viewer, everything is in constant development and in motion. Steven Emmanuel’s art quotes artists and art viewers, his objects and sculptures are humorous and narrative-playful commentaries on the paradox of the artistic process and the presentation of the final artwork in the exhibition space.
A key work in the exhibition is “Inside the white cube”, a round ball of white emulsion paint. For three years, Steven Emmanuel has been painting and repainting the crumb of paint, which was initially only a few millimetres in size, almost every day. The growing ball, formed from the base colour brought to life and into the studio from the wall of the “White Cube”, is a life project and will one day, as art in public space, be the artist’s tombstone.
Steven Emmanuel, born in North Wales in 1982, lives and works in Nuremberg and London. He studied in Brighton and at the Royal College of Art in London and has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the UK, Germany and Switzerland. “Somewhere along the way” is Steven Emmanuel’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland.
message salon is publishing a zine on the occasion of the exhibition
Steven Emmanuel “Fanzine”, 48 pages, 24 pictures, an edition of 24, each copy editioned number 1 of 24, signed by the artist’s father, © message salon 2012