Tell Me Again at The Invisible Line Gallery

Held in The Invisible Line Gallery’s small space on Dalston Lane, Tell Me Again features the work of four young contemporary artists: Elizabeth Eamer, Sarah Jacobs, Francisco Ortega and Cristina Rodrigues.

The back wall of the gallery is dominated by a large quilted blanket, made by Rodrigues, that hangs from the corners of the room and swoops out over the floor. Impressive in its labour and construction, the blanket is made up mainly of square wooden tiles that have brightly coloured patterns stencilled onto them with spray paint and are woven together with patterned fabrics. The work is reportedly inspired by traditional costumes of culture indigenous to central Portugal where the artist is from.

Sarah Jacobs’ works seem to follow in a similar vein; they are a series of wooden circles, 10cm in diameter and painted with bold geometric patterns in bright colours. However they don’t carry off the use of garishly clashing colours as well as Rodrigues’ work does as they feel precious and calculated rather than playful and bold. The circles feature iconography from her youth in rural Pennsylvania; a Catholic Church window, a quilt pattern, the Veterans of Foreign Wars logo and a hex sign are all built into the patterns, yet their significance is questionable when the works feel methodical and devoid of any emotion.

Elizabeth Eamer has three small pieces which combine collage and painting in very simple arrangements. They are aesthetically nice but they play it very safe and feel more decorative than explorative. We see black and white diagrams of some kind, cut out and pasted onto flat pastel green backgrounds with small balls of white-tack, tinted different colours and also placed onto the green in a grid formation.

The highlight of the show is a dynamic, abstract painting by Francisco Ortega; the composition is chaotic and brash and the handling of paint is very bold, yet his sense of colour and balance creates an arrangement that holds together well.

Steve Mallon

Tell Me Again is at The Thin Line Gallery from 21^st August to 20^th September 2014, for further information visit here.