'Insomnia'
14.03.26 – 12.04.26
EBONY/CURATED Bordeaux House
'Insomnia' emerges from a contemporary condition marked by information overload and ecological uncertainty. Public conversation around climate change appears increasingly fragmented: scientific urgency competes with corporate influence, misinformation, and political inertia. Within this landscape a sense of exhaustion has taken hold. Faced with the scale and complexity of the crisis, many retreat into passivity, relinquishing responsibility in the belief that meaningful action lies beyond individual control.
The exhibition unfolds within a world suspended between dream and wakefulness with figures reclining across sofas and exteriors, their bodies slack with exhaustion, their stillness suggesting both comfort and defeat. At first glance, the scenes appear restful, even indulgent, but these figures are not merely asleep; they are prostrate, overcome by fatigue, and supine, lying in a posture that implies surrender. In these works, such states become metaphors for a broader cultural paralysis in the face of environmental collapse and political dysfunction.
The paintings themselves inhabit the uneasy space between awareness and inaction. Sleep has long functioned as both refuge and escape, yet here it becomes more ambiguous: a gesture of withdrawal and a quiet relinquishing of agency. The figures seem held between rest and disturbance, as though something unresolved continues to press at the edge of consciousness. Visually, the works balance seduction and disruption. Lush vegetation, radiant skies, and saturated tropical colour fields conjure scenes of leisure and abundance. Pink, turquoise, acid yellow, and electric blue produce a heightened palette that pushes the paintings toward a dreamlike register, recalling the vivid distortions of a mind deprived of rest. At first glance, the scenes appear idyllic, offering the promise of escape. Yet the longer one looks, the more unstable these environments begin to feel - surfaces warp, marks interrupt the calm, and pictorial space resists settling into harmony.
Throughout the compositions, sources of light puncture the atmosphere. Lamps flare, glowing discs hover, and ambiguous orbs drift through the paintings. These forms resemble moons, suns, or artificial halos, yet their presence feels slightly displaced, as though the natural order has been quietly rearranged. The glow they cast is less comforting than exposing, transforming the works into spaces of unease.
Within these luminous environments, the desire to believe that everything will ultimately be fine coincides with a quieter awareness that such reassurance may be illusory. The works capture the strange dissonance of a moment in which catastrophe and normalcy coexist: contemporary life continues to offer pleasures, distractions, and aesthetic comforts even as underlying systems reveal signs of strain.
If sleep promises peace, insomnia becomes its opposite - a restless state in which underlying concerns refuse to fade into the background. The exhibition closes not with answers, but with an imperative to look more closely, to challenge the space between indulgence and responsibility, and to recognise that even in our weariness, attention and care remain necessary and urgent. In this liminal space, the figures remain half-awake, caught between vigilance and avoidance, between confronting uncomfortable truths, and seeking refuge in the dream.
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