PHOSPHENES
55 Eastcastle Street
London
2023


 

A phosphene is the sensation of seeing light without light entering the eye. For this exhibition, Mangion adopts an internalised starting position and focal point, presenting a new series of large paintings composed of stark planes illuminated by translucent veneers of colour.

Using techniques of layering, puddling, staining, bleeding and transferring of diluted pigment onto raw absorbent linen, these slight but gestural actions present a charged and performative space, a porous landscape where intuitive encounters collide with controlled interventions in a whimsical conflict with medium, composition and narrative.

In the studio, Mangion works across the surfaces horizontally, ‘in the round’, working with interchangeable combinations. They are fluid and there is no defined orientation allowing for a modular polylithic potential. Void of any directed narrative, the works allude to fragmented meaning and in between spaces. Phosphenes proposes a static orientation in this ongoing movement, a pause to reflect on surface, potential and time.

Proponents of a raw unmasked vulnerability, these paintings emanate from an intimate conflict and trajectory reflecting on existential and political spaces and psychological states.