TEMPLATE
Wednesday 14th June - Saturday 22nd July 2023
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Fold is pleased to present Template, a two-person exhibition that brings together the work of emerging artist Niccolo Binda and gallery artist Jo Hummel, by exploring notions of semiotics, typography, found objects and ephemera.

Semiotics is the systematic study of sign processes and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, usually called a meaning, to the sign’s interpreter.

Although at first glance the aesthetics and materials used by Binda and Hummel are quite different and could almost seem incongruous, the common thread behind both of their practices, which ties the work together, is a fascination with symbols and a graphic interest in the ‘found alphabet’. In conjunction with ideas of mass production, repetition and ephemera Template presents the viewer with work that is at once loose and floating, where sheets of paper hang almost alphabetically in fragile repeated paper drapes, and also solid, where tightly contained graphic objects made from laser cut MDF and framed paper collages punctuate the gallery walls.

Niccolo Binda makes painted wall objects where each component is inspired by a new way of making, by hand or through laser cutting and 3D printing. He brings overlooked details from the floor of public spaces onto gallery walls. The resulting aesthetic “derived from the way elements on the ground are slotted in and around each other,” are much like an intricately crafted jigsaw puzzle. Made with painstaking care and presented as low-relief sculpture, the work transforms our perception of mundane details of the urban landscape.

Binda’s work remains grounded by methods of construction and builder’s merchant materials, which remain plainly evident in the final outcome. It interests him that most of our built environment has semiotics that have been anonymously designed and created.

Jo Hummel’s work is characterised by a painted and paper collaged surface on which she employs spontaneous variations of space, colour and form. Although her painting collages are physically engaged and are materially driven, the context is purposefully anthropological.

Hummel’s works are informed by human behaviour and determinism but also relate to the found alphabet, containing imagery with strong references to the process of stencilling and formatting. “The nature of collage is that throughout its creation a work is in constant flux. The artist must negotiate the canvas by rearranging, choosing and adjusting, often over long periods and having explored hundreds, even thousands of the infinite possible outcomes. In this way the process itself is as significant as the final outcome.”

The process of semiosis that Hummel employs, by arranging and rearranging cut paper to form shapes and patterns that repeat in an alphabet-like language, responds to the found text utilised by Binda in his wall objects, presenting the viewer with a journey that is at once spontaneous but also definitive.