“Conversations Between Two“ is Cece Philips’ (b. 1996 in London, UK) third solo exhibition with the gallery and her first in Milan. This exhibition of recent works on canvas is introduced alongside a play written as a companion piece by author Lucy Mcllgorm.

In Cece Philips’ atmospheric work, the night time is an omnipresent determine, invisible however felt and permeating areas and conditions with a deep blue tinge. In opposition to this nightly backdrop, ladies converse, collect, replicate and wander, each actors and observers of the life that emerges in these blue hours between nightfall and daybreak. In “Conversations Between Two,” Philips’ figures depart the streets of an nameless cosmopolis for the velvet seats of a theatre, sitting in a deep longing to be consumed by the seemingly infinite sense of risk emanating from the stage. “Voyeurs with permission for an evening,” displays Philips. The concepts of spectatorship and narrative prevail in her observe, right here explored by way of the system of the theatre, an area during which want, voyeurism and storytelling converse.

“The primary feminist gesture is to say: ‘OK, they’re me. However I’m them.’ The act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world shouldn’t be outlined by how folks see me, however how I see them.” These phrases by director and screenwriter Agnès Varda converse to the connection between the one observing and the one being noticed, an interaction on the centre of Cece Philips’ creative reflection, as she investigates the dynamics of energy and gender within the act of wanting. Underneath her brush, the topic of statement is now doing the observing, performer of the mundane instantly sitting within the viewers, witness of the spectacle.

Cece Philips trades her blues for heat shades of purple, because the temperature rises on the portray’s floor, translating the warmth within the pulsing ambiance of the theatre. “Purple, purple, purple, all over the place” describes one of many characters written by Lucy Mcllgorm, as she remembers her first time experiencing the theatre. In Philips’ compositions, purple engulfs the figures, suggesting the sound of vague chatter, of applause, maybe music, and inducing a delicate but palpable heat into the night time’s blue quietness. A sure silence continues to be perceptible in Philip’s works, the type one solely hears within the anticipation earlier than the primary act, that lingers within the pause of a dialogue or within the delicate stress of a primary encounter, earlier than being damaged by the sound of a voice, as evokes the piece titled The Silent Awe of Strangers (quickly to be buddies).

Conversations Between Two, the portray lending its title to the exhibition depicts buddies of the artist exchanging playful and secret whispers, capturing the kinship cast in a second of shared awe and delight. Nonetheless, the title of the exhibition holds additional dualities and nuances, revealing connections past that of two characters interacting in a verbal alternate. There’s the continuing dialogue between portray and theatre, painted and written characters, in addition to inside and exterior selves. The 2 in dialog are additionally performer and viewers, the viewers sitting within the theatre, but additionally the viewers observing the portray, forming an interactive mise en abyme. Because the viewer of the piece titled Marionettes, we instantly discover ourselves performing the act of spectatorship for a painted viewers, as we stand behind the fourth wall damaged by the attentive gaze the characters place upon us.

By being the witness of a efficiency, one is ready to have their very own inside ideas mirrored again to them in an exterior area, blurring non-public and public selves, whereas fiction appears to overlap with actuality. In “Conversations between Two,” portray and theatre alike reveal nuances on the complexity of life, shedding mild on the quotidian efficiency we give on the world’s stage.

at Peres Projects, Milan
till November 15, 2024