Installation shot -
Geometra
2016
Monika Bobinska/ Canal Projects
London

















Installation shot - 
Geometra 
2016
Monika Bobinska/ Canal Projects
London

Paul Carey-Kent
Review of Geometra

James Brooks' subtle drawing-originated practice delights in using coded realities as the basis for apparent abstraction, and the seven methodological strands of Geometra also link the classical world to contemporary communications and terrorism. The result is the simplest-seeming complex show you could wish for. The audio slideshow Stoic Meditations of Marcus Aurelius combines three elements: seven black and white images of Syrian Roman Ruins as they were before the current conflict; seven selections from the ancient text chosen for resonance in the context; and a musical score for harp and flute derived from the sequencing of letters in the quotes. We're flickering between chance and calamity; yet the 22 minute whole is ambiently meditative.


http://paulsartworld.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/top-ten-up-now.html
250 words or less  

Review of:
James Brooks - Geometra

14 Jan
 - 6 Feb 2016

Monika Bobinska/ Canal Projects, London


Brooks dissects civic spaces into their constituent parts analysing how each are experiences of European social order, at the junction between the contemporary and historical.  He has brought together these elements – Roman roads, Ancient Greek lakes, town squares, and urban boundaries – re-imagining them as a cartographer, containing them within the boundaries of pure geometry devoid of the organic and the human.


The shapes are precision cut and reapplied to a base that contains the geometric super-structure. Up-close you can see the calculations, lines, and intimate geometric explorations; from afar, we are presented with a birds-eye view of each series rendered in flat colour.


I found the most successful works to be Paris’ twenty Arrondissements and the Tuscan Piazze. The former are no longer shown as a puzzle piece within ‘l’escargot’, but instead as individual areas in grey gauche. This is not the usual experience of a map of Paris, but is probably closer to how the Arrondissements’ demarcating boarders are used to order Parisian civic life.  The latter shows the four main piazze of Tuscany’s major cities; each space the flash-point of the historical, religious and civic, and are painted in the umber and terracotta that colour the Tuscan landscape. 


Though conceptual, this exhibition is not alienating as it investigates the universal familiarity of civic life through the most basic of shapes.  The aesthetic is such that should the viewer be armed with only the title of the work, it is apparent what is being observed.


(246 words)


http://250wordsorless.tumblr.com
James Brooks 
Geometra

14 Jan - 6 Feb 2016

Monika Bobinska/ Canal Projects 

60 De Beauvoir Crescent
London 
N1 5SB

info@canalprojects.info

www.canalprojects.info





















James Brooks
Civic piazze of Tuscany (Siena)
2016
Pencil, cuts & gouache on watercolour paper
21 x 21 cm