Shapeshifting

A form becomes recognisable through the associations it permits. A contour suggests a body; a surface evokes a landscape; an organic structure appears to belong to several possible organisms. When these associations coexist without resolving into a stable identity, recognition becomes uncertain. Shapeshifting brings together four artists whose practices explore the imaginative and psychological possibilities of this uncertainty.

Across the work of Dorothea Tanning, Elsa Thoresen, Isabelle Zetterström, Jenny Palén, metamorphosis operates through the construction of images, their material realisation and the meanings they acquire. The exhibition approaches Surrealism through this capacity for transformation, examining how its historical concerns with dreams and unconscious association continue to inform questions of perception, identity and artistic production.