ODE TO OATHS: A Debut Solo Show by Salomé Wu | It's 2020 For F*ck Sake – A Thirteen Artist, Back-to-Back Solo Exhibition Marathon
Within this practice, I am particularly drawn to instances of lamentation – I find much of my art bears a common expression of grief and sorrow.
I hope that when people experience my work, they are able to relate to the stories they contain, merging their own subjectivities with the presented narratives. Within this practice, I am particularly drawn to instances of lamentation – I find much of my art bears a common expression of grief and sorrow. However, I would be remiss to erase all joy from my work. Perhaps, instead, these are the poles between which my work oscillates, trying to evoke the power of both harrowing loss and intense joy; I find that the interplay of these feelings prove an opportunity to reflect on what's important, and what to cherish.
Salomé Wu (b. 1996, China) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice involves oil painting, printing on silk, installations, and performance. As a teenager, Salomé admired a teacher who encouraged her to pursue training in calligraphy and painting. Her work examines otherworldliness through translations and ever-evolving reinterpretations of a mythology, formed from her observation of time, fragility, and the interplay between reality and the unseen. Understanding herself primarily as a global citizen, Salomé works to keep her art devoid of contemporary models of identification and taxonomy, relying on obliquely biomorphic figures to populate her work. Across mediums, she presents a nonlinear journey, weaving together seemingly disparate moments to unveil previously concealed narratives. Salomé lives and works in London, UK.
Guts Gallery and Soft Punk Magazine are proud to collaboratively present “It's 2020 For F*ck Sake”, a thirteen artist, back-to-back solo exhibition marathon, running from 24 September 2020 to 21 December 2020, first in a railway arch under Haggerston Station, and now with a return to lockdown, online through VR content.
Born from a desire to refuse the conditions of silence, paralysis, and erasure brought on by our current social and political climate, this exhibition series has been conceived as a means of exhibiting some of the most promising practitioners of the new generation, creating space for display, experimentation, and artistic ownership in an otherwise compromising market.
Actively aware of the scarcity of shows for underrepresented emerging artists, each artist exhibiting has been given full license over the space. However, this is an exhibition marathon founded in community — while each artist has a solo show, the broader ethos is one of collaboration, accessibility, progress, and collective shouldering of one another.
Once more returning to “lockdown” as of Thursday, 5th November, the remainder of the solo exhibitions will be launched and viewed through virtual reality, a viewing room via Guts’ upcoming Artlogic website and of course, Instagram. All of these platforms will be made live at the same time each week on the date the private views were due to take place. We would like viewers to engage with the works as you would in our physical space, curating an environment specific to each show and artist.
At a moment when the arts sector is on the brink of a major crisis, we are committed to continue putting our community first, paying fair wages, and providing sustained support for artists in any way we can.
