Hatch Gallery is pleased to present Working Site an installation composed of five works, from large to small scale exploring the in-between spaces, specifically conceived by the Portuguese artist, Maria Appleton (b.1997 in Lisbon, PT) for her first presentation at Artissima 2024.

Max Ernest stated that: “Every normal human being (and not merely the 'artist') has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious, it is merely a matter of courage or liberating procedures ... of voyages into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light.”

Similar to the process of day dreaming, by decanting and observing mere characteristics from city scapes and urban design, Appleton investigates where the body (tangible) and mind (intangible), constantly oscillate between the process of contemplation and immersion. The artist’s floating textiles act as spatial filters onto a metaphysical world unraveling as chromatic in-prints onto a juxtaposition of woven double fabric inlaid paper cut outs, photographs and tree skin, defining a series of vibrant intricate compositions.

For Working Site, three works have been suspended, detaching themselves from the walls, in an assumed gesture of inhabiting the non space, resulting as a large-scale architectural intervention that invites the viewer, present on the booth, to contemplate, capture and reflect on this constantly evolving data-saturated modern landscape.

The masterpiece exhibited Awning at night, Seville refers, formally and technically, to the shades present in many Southern Europe building facades, unfolding from window tops and falling out of balconies. The artist finds these, like other architectural-fabric objects, to be physical representatives of both, borders and joints, between public and private worlds, and therefore between the observer and the observed object.

In this case, by removing the idea of a balcony, the sizable woven piece of fabric looses its meaning but enters collective recognition, almost like a postcard, a souvenir, transferred to a different reality. The idea of “images of memory”, often explored in Maria’s work, through - collaging, cutting of papers, postcards, newspapers, and weaving them back in the loom - edits the original intention and function of the object.

Appleton's intentions are to re-examine the tangible structures indicating boundaries between private and public realms. By decontextualizing city 'architectural-fabric' objects, such as window awnings and construction safety nets, the artist investigates vestigial spaces produced by architectural productions, to finally understand our physical interaction once their utilitarian use and urban assets are revoked.