ZONA MISTA

a group show by Francesca Mollett, Kiki Xuebing Wang and Ed Compson featuring recent works that focus on touch, effect and imitation in relation to painting.

Sympathetic magic uses objects with a symbol or association to a particular person in a ritual to create a supernatural influence over that person or environment. In the casting of a spell, the act upon a physical object affects the person who had contact with the same object. The way that sympathetic magic brings up contagion and imitation is a way of thinking about how painting’s aura is created through touch. As painters, we are seeking to bring into being an image that works across distance and time, emitting a connection between the original source, painter and viewer. Magic is a way of working outside known realities, and paintings are microcosms of glimpsed alternative realities. In the principles of sympathetic magic, things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy, the impulse being transmitted from one to the other by means of what we conceive of as a kind of invisible ether, involving enchantment and seduction.

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Kiki Xuebing Wang (1993) is studying MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, and graduated from UCLA in 2016. She was in group exhibitions this year (2019) in MadeIn Gallery and Slime Engine in Shanghai. Her work has been featured in other group exhibitions including Works on Paper, Little Gallery, Los Angeles (2016), Hysterics, Sculpture Gallery, Los Angeles (2016), I Feel Like You’d Be a Tender Lover, Little Gallery, Los Angeles (2016), and Senior Discount, New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles (2016).

Francesca Mollett (1991) is studying MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, and previously graduated from The Royal Drawing School (2015) and Wimbledon College of Arts (2014). This year she had a solo exhibition ‘Keyholes’ at Brockley Gardens, London and co-curated and exhibited in a group show ‘Dust sheet embroidered show’ at Project Gallery, Arundel, West Sussex. In 2018 she exhibited in ‘The Value of Liveliness’, White Crypt, London, ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eye’, rural BAES, East Sussex and ‘DRAW’, Mandell’s Gallery, Norwich. From 2015 - 2017 Francesca co-formed and ran The Benevolent Association of Excellent Solutions (BAES), a project space and set of studios in Deptford.

Ed Compson (1991) is studying MA Painting at the Royal College of Art having previously graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2016. Earlier this summer, he exhibited in a group shows ‘Sensitive Matter’ at Bridget Riley Studios, ‘BLIP’ as part of Edinburgh ANNUALE Festival 2019 and ‘Sextant’ with Jesse Rivers at Middlesex Gallery. From 2016 - 2018 Ed ran EMBASSY Gallery, a dedicated artist-run gallery in Edinburgh and is co-founder of MARS, an art complex and school in Maruseppu, Japan.

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