Abigail uses montage techniques of layering and folding to destabilise singular ideas of cultural and political ecologies. She often works in dialogue with disciplines and places outside the art world; a silver band, geologists, libraries. She works across sculpture, print and film as well as creating ephemeral events to bring disparate things into conversation. She works with a strong awareness of plurality; keeping a space complex and unreconciled.
“The pages and images she excavates, now dislocated from their original context, become more like artifacts or archeological remnants – more enigmatic, more mutable, and open to more complex meaning and association.” (Martin Clark)
Abigail is well known for her work in collage, using dynamic forms of assembly to release the latent possibilities in photographs by cutting and folding. To fold or layer historic images or events brings into focus our relation to time, making it possible to discern things that are almost completely lost. Another medium she often uses is glass - using it metaphorically to focus the act of looking and to suggest alternative modes of perception as well as simply to focus the light.
Abigail Reynolds lives in St Just, Cornwall, and has a studio at Porthmeor in St Ives. She studied English Literature at St Catherine's College Oxford University and subsequently Fine Art at MA level at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Over 2021-22 Abigail exhibited across all four cities of the British Art Show 9 tour. In 2022 she completed a permanent major commission for Kresen Kernow, the Cornish archive centre, accompanied by a publication. In March 2016 Abigail was awarded the BMW Art Journey prize at Art Basel, to travel to lost libraries along the Silk Road. Her book 'Lost Libraries' documenting this journey was published by Hatje Cantz in 2018. For more details visit www.abigailreynoldsarchive.com
Recent Solo Exhibitions:
2022 Flux, Kestle Barton Gallery, Cornwall
2020 Taken in a few seconds // By the reflection of light, The Harris Museum Preston
2018 The Universal Now and Further Episodes, PEER UK London
2017 We beat the bounds, Tate St Ives
2016 Lost Libraries, Art Basel Miami Beach & Art Basel Hong Kong
Recent Group Exhibitions:
2021-2 British Art Show 9 Aberdeen, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Plymouth
2019 Desde el Salon Whitechapel Gallery London
2019 Nocturnal Creatures Whitechapel Gallery London
2019 Dream Libraries Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, Germany
2018 Speech Acts: reflection, imagination, repetition Manchester Art Gallery
Public Collections: