Approaching Abstraction at Blain|Southern, London, 30th January to 23rd March 2019

The art inspired by wabi-sabi recognises that beauty can arise by chance and from the random variations of nature. To put this philosophy into practice, Bosco Sodi established Casa Wabi in 2014 to provide an environment where the artists in residence can collaborate, and exchange ideas and skills both within the group and with the local community. To present the art inspired by this environment, Bosco Sodi and Alberto Ríos have curated Approaching Abstraction to showcase pieces by nine young artists, most of whom have undertaken residencies at Casa Wabi. These works utilise a variety of different mediums but unite around core themes like architecture, landscape, time and identity.

Bosco Sodi: Heavens and the Earth at Blain|Southern, London, 30th January to 23rd March 2019

That a painting is the lasting evidence of a performance is certainly true of the works of Bosco Sodi. Inspired by wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that accepts imperfection and reveres natural authenticity, Sodi’s paintings are fashioned from organic materials transformed into art through an intensely physical process in which chance and experimentation play important roles. Working for the first time with black and white, these monochromatic relief paintings offer a dialogue between contrasting universal forces – light and dark, good and evil, life and death – and have a striking sense of post-apocalyptic art about them