Not Really Now Not Anymore

“…not really now not anymore… For what does the phrase point to if not a fatal temporality? Not now, not any more, not really. Does this mean that the present has eroded, disappeared not now any more? Are we in the time of the always already, where the future has been written; in which case it is not the future, not really?”

P91, Mark Fisher “The Weird And The Eerie” (2016) Pub. Repeater Books, London, UK

Hannah Lees presents a series of new tablet works that combine beach combed objects with the elements of mica dust and rust converted iron powder, to create a kind of alchemy, embedded in plaster forms that are reminiscent of ancient artefacts. The work alternates between exploring circularity and linearity, at times following a process by which objects are permanently transformed and reactivated as painterly abstractions.

Hannah Lees is interested in how civilisations form and end around an ever changing relationship between what is valued and what is discarded. The work is abstract, in the sense that it does not reproduce existing cultural conditions for the sake of critique or documentary, rather it combines unexpected elements in order for connections to arise. By activating the affective potential of objects these works focus towards an understanding of the essential nature of the materials used as well as allowing space for shifts in context to disrupt an inter- pretation and allow for new meaning.