Art collective Not Dead Yet put on a show at the Seven Dials Club in Shoreditch. Kate Weir reports.
It’s been pointed out to me that I write about the free food and drink as much as I do the art at exhibitions, but well, a critic’s gotta eat, and mini-burgers are the way to a girl’s heart as the Seven Dials Club proves during collective Not Dead Yet’s show, Beginning. Gastric delights aside for once, Beginning proves to be a delightful curio box of buttons, beetles, batik and AK47s with recession-friendly prices and some slick photography pieces.
Caroline Södergren's photographs capture seemingly insignificant moments in a narrative, but are filled with immanence; they act as subtle and delicate MacGuffins which are imbued with foreboding and poignancy. Whether a sprinkle of branches bleeding into a blank frame or the underbrush of a roadside ditch, something has either just happened to leave the image reeling or is just about to crash into the frame.
Hannah Battershell’s fantastic found pieces are, for me, the highlight of the exhibition: a motley collection of buttons and matchboxes given a Beatrix Potter-esque makeover for the entomology enthusiast. Characters such as the Leopard Slug give Battershell’s work the quirky exuberance of a children’s story book and appeal to a trendy thrift-store aesthetic. Her objects may be insignificant – pins or scraps of paper – but she bestows upon them a magical talismanic quality by focusing on a single object or highlighting one tiny aspect of each piece.
But there are many more delights to be found in this adorable collective: Joe Dixon gives AK47s a colourful makeover alongside huge tribal patterns and masks; Luke Hornus' slightly Lynchian collisions of teddy bears in Edward Gorey-style etchings retain the grim yet playful schadenfreude of Victorian cautionary tales; and Melissa Launey‘s batik-style prints bring to mind Rousseau’s Surprise Tiger.
Spanning photography, fine art, illustration, sculpture and graphic design, Beginning has some very strong work, and Not Dead Yet are a collective with some definite future talent. My only criticism is that the show has a varied texture and a somewhat scattered feel with so many different styles rubbing elbows. It might have benefited from a clearer theme. However, with undoubtedly talented artists at the helm and a slew of mini-burgers to satiate the critics’ appetites, Not Dead Yet will undoubtedly remain so for a long time to come.
Click here to see all London exhibitions.
Click here for things to do in London.
Return to Spoonfed's London Art homepage.
Add an event
Minimalism, Van Dyke, Mondrian - Editor's Choice, Exhibitions
From Wednesday 15th February Colin Glen @ TJ Boulting Tangled complexity meets stark minimalism in t...