Repeat Patterns
An exhibition of works by Lesley Cherry
Repeat Patterns sees Cherry using wallpaper and text, which are recurring materials and themes in her practice. She uses these materials as decorative compositions in which to record and hide hand- written stories: some of the stories are true; some come from news reports or reality television and the titles she chooses for the work add another ambiguous story, when placed or read together. The wallpaper is a metaphor for how pattern is embedded in our everyday routines and actions. The domestic covering is often a design based in nature, displaced and used in an interior space. We can change the wallpaper, but does the pattern ever really change within our lives? This question is core to Cherry’s investigations. They become sites for the hidden stories she has recorded. Using video, she captures items in the process of being made and amended as a way of understanding the repeat nature of our actions, exposing rhythms within our unconscious behaviours and actions.
Lesley Cherry’s practice draws on issues raised through domestic settings: nostalgia; memory; language; and class. Currently, she is developing these elements through video and installation: exploring the tension and hypocrisy of nostalgia and memory, juxtaposed with the reality of a situation remembered. There is a humour to her work, which often masks the more serious issues being addressed, entwined with elements of performance and drama.
About the artist:
Cherry studied at the University of Ulster, Belfast gaining a BA Hons in Fine & Applied Art and graduated with at Master of Fine Art in 2011. She received the ARCH Development Residency, Washington DC, in 2012 and the ACNI Artists Enhancement Award in 2014. She has also been awarded several SIAP awards from the ACNI and was invited to attend the Erno Tolvaly Artists’ Residency, Hungary, in August 2014. She is currently based at Creative Exchange Artists’ Studios, Belfast.
Supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council