Alexis Soul-Gray: Memory Play

Within this body of densely watchable new works there is a sense of crush emerging in a carefully managed tumult of imagery and texture tousling for foreground status. We are witness to an organised parade of fallings apart and comings together as they provoke a sort of merry-go-round methodology, within which driving figures backwards through bleaching, rubbing, staining leaves them waiting in the wings, awaiting their possible return to the surface. In these complex works, erasure functions as an additive - the semi-removal of a figure or form rendering it a phantom, with much to contribute and presence enough not to be left behind. The figures in the foreground often flatten, selling us their knitwear, the organised chaos of their school play, their costumes, their t-bar shoes (with socks pulled up). The shadowy figures in the behind are searching and gleaning, pulling wet blankets of paint over themselves and sneaking around wanting to be drawn further in, like understudies.

In one of Soul-Gray’s most arresting paintings, a cast of characters faces forward in what looks like the curtain call for a school play or amateur production. Many of the expectant faces in this tableau vivant look out at us for approval or applause. Some of the figures are costumed, or are perhaps creatures that we only imagine to hold children inside them. Some have the irresistible guise of stickers or cyphers, adhered to the surface of the painting. In this work, the familiar and unfamiliar sit very close to each other, rubbing off on each other. I believe I was in this play. Then I realise how strange and dark it is, and that I have never seen it before.

Read the full essay by Dr Zoë Mendelson here