Installation View, “Winter Show” at Union Pacific, London. Photo courtesy the artist and Union Pacific.
In this three-person exhibition at Union Pacific in London, dubbed “Winter Show,” artists Aaron Angell, Lucy Stein, and Issy Wood come together in a somewhat dark-toned meditation on winter and its association with illness, the inherent violence in nature, and death.
Angell, who is featured on artnet News’ 2016 list of The 50 Most Exciting Artists in Europe Right Now, returns with his signature ceramic sculptures, here in the form of glazed stoneware.
Stein and Wood, both presenting paintings, are seemingly in tandem with dark, figurative canvases depicting female figures—or their otherworldly counterparts.
The press release is an excerpt from the short story “The Wolves of Cernogratz” by Saki (also known as H. H. Munro)—a strange, mythical tale set in a castle originally owned by the fictitious Cernogratz family before they lost their fortunes.
On a cold winter night, the governess recites a myth that whenever a Cernogratz family member—the rightful and true owners of the estate—dies in the castle, wolves howl in a mournful chorus and a tree falls in the forest.
Her story is protested by non-believers and new owners, but upon her death, all of the old woman’s predictions come true—proving her hereditary connection to the honorable but disgraced Cernogratz lineage.
“Winter Show” is on view at Union Pacific, London until December 17, 2016.