Private View. Lineages at October Gallery London

October Gallery presents Lineages which brings together the work of Susanne Kessler, Elisabeth Lalouschek, Theresa Weber, Golnaz Fathi, Tian Wei, El Anatsui, Gerald Wilde and includes for the first time, striking works by Eleanor Lakelin, Junko Mori, and Bev Butkow. The exhibition explores the employment of line within these artists’ practice, in which the notion of line is not confined to the drawn mark, but emerges as a connective thread in concept and form.

Each selected work examines where lines become pathways across histories, environment, languages and materials: Susanne Kessler’s works on paper, collages, paintings, sculptures and installations investigate line - in all its manifestations, while Elisabeth Lalouschek’s abstract compositions are rooted in gesture, rhythm and the physical act of mark-making.

Two new relief paintings presented by Theresa Weber reflect her conceptual approach to the ever-changing nexus of identity and lineage. These works reveal an intuitive mapping of the intersectional body from a de-colonial perspective that resists the Western idea of the ‘grid’ or linear time in favour of organic forms, energy fields and circular time as an act of resistance.

Other works exhibited celebrate line within nature’s formations, such as works by Eleanor Lakelin and Junko Mori. Guided by nature, both Lakelin and Mori understand line as a transformational tool, whether carved into or built upon, using it as a means of wayfinding through the evolving dialogue of sculptural creation.

Bev Butkow’s work transgresses the boundaries between textile art, painting, sculpture and installation. She works experimentally across and between these genres, using weaving as a literal and figurative process that connects the material, the personal and the social.

Work by Golnaz Fathi explores the potential for overlap and exchange between the quite separate domains of modernist abstraction and classical Persian calligraphy, while Tian Wei’s detailed paintings explore the intersection of language, philosophy and abstraction. Within El Anatsui’s Earth struggling to grow roots and leaves, 2023, the viewer sees bottle tops layered together with coloured lines reaching out across the work, masterfully sewn together with copper wire to create a dynamic wall hanging sculpture. For British artist Gerald Wilde line for was both expressive and architectural, carving out space while also embodying raw emotion.

Each artist charts a unique course through the conceptual and literal activation of line. The works in Lineages invite viewers to consider how artists use line through gesture and materiality and furthermore, as a form of ways that unpacks culture, nature, identity and imagination.