A Necessary Evil is an exhibition of artists that stage the process of creation as a kind of capturing, or trapping. These five artists seek to manipulate immaterial factors – such as colour, time, possibility, and culture – but their efforts are tempered and stymied by the dumb fact of matter. The material support presents a compromise upon which the immaterial is reluctantly contained for the purpose of presentation.
Propositional images are threatened by the resolution of the given material. Weight, organisation, application and physical labor expose kernels of conflict that becomes explicit subject matter. A continuous negotiation suffuses the work of these artists with irreconcilable tension. At the heart of this struggle is a question of will: the will of the artist versus the will of the material.