Join us for ‘Y Shaped Strokes’ the conclusion of Sophie Mackfall’s New Contemporaries Studio Bursary here at One Thoresby Street.

PV 7th November 6:00-9:00pm
Open by appointment until 23rd November

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The tabletop is cut from a mast that was once the central spar carrying the sail. Saplings stuck into the muddy sea floor – referred to as withies or booms and adorned with rings of rubber and detritus – mark the passage. They sway in the glistening blue, or rolling, infinite varieties of grey.

Y shaped strokes
The strokes, of course, are only conventional signs.
Cut, paste
A jarring frame of mind, covered over by clouds of white
Cut
Cutting in, cutting into the white, but not quite
Cutting through
A veil that’s more like fifty feet of solid concrete.
Jacob’s ladder.
No, better, Ree’s ladder.
Yellow ladder out of here
On rungs of willow
Trying hard falling harder.
Dense pond weed a green screen to slice through
Hitting the flat, pthalo green, absolute matte
The fall exposing the black beneath.
When the words come out they don’t cast light
They come out dark and
In the night the images are rectangular and hard.
When I wake at dawn a circle is drawn with a subtle knife
The grain of the tabletop revealed as a glowing horizon; a gnarled knot, the sun and its reflection rising over the sea.