In conjunction with the current exhibition at Void Gallery, Re_sett_ing_s, artists Locky Morris and Jaki Irvine present Re_sett_ing_s_Knots as a billboard display located at Strand Road & Garden City, Derry, from 22 May -
4 June 2023.

In October, 2022 Re_sett_ing_s, a collaborative exhibition between Locky Morris and Jaki Irvine opened at The Complex Gallery, Dublin. The artists, who are probably best known for working solo, were approached separately by Mark O’ Gorman speculating on ‘hidden connections’. Unbeknownst to him, they had a close friend in common, artist Anne Tallentire, whose Setting Out 3 (2021), with its yellow builder’s string and hints at musicality, acted as a kind of starting point and touchstone for the development of the work.

The process involved a visit, another, getting a sense of each other’s practice, for the possibilities of lines of commonality, of the edges of things and thinking. Derry, Dublin, Derry. The Artnz Belting company on Pennyburn. The transmitter masts at Sheriff’s Mountain. A beach. A park. An overcast sky. Risks are inherent within such an approach. They didn’t know each other very well beforehand. What has emerged has been surprising, unexpected and according to the artists themselves, quite liberating. 

The temporality of the work resonated with Void’s programme so an invitation was extended to continue the collaboration at Void. Coincidentally, Void has also had the pleasure of working with Anne Tallentire, so the connective thread continues. The artists agreed, not just to re-install the exhibition in a new setting, but to deepen the conversation, bringing other unforeseen tones and layers into play as they developed new work in
response to Void’s invitation.

Locky Morris has become known recently for using Instagram as a way of thinking, communicating and making work. Executed mostly in the moment, during daily walks, he posts images and short videos and sees it as a form of parallel practice which is often sculptural in nature. The lines between each artist’s work became blurred and ultimately irrelevant as Jaki Irvine’s use of video installation and filmic and sonic influences creates a confluence of images and sound, where each artist inhabits and crosses over into the other’s work, responding, playing and overlapping in the manner of a conversation. Thoughts and ideas, excited and pensive, have produced a suite of looping images and sounds that are tight but also unruly. At once attentive and loose. Both artists happen to be musicians. Here the sonic elements - rhythms, industrial sounds - overlap, partly orchestrated, adding to the sense of a visual, digital, soundscape where new forms constantly mutate and develop, both within and beyond the gallery space. We are delighted to have been able to commission the artists to expand this work and bring new filmic, digital and sound elements to Void Gallery and beyond.

Kindly supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Organisations Digital Evolution Award, thanks to The National Lottery.