DOMINIQUE WHITE

BOUNDARY + GESTUREWysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, 2019

a haunting, a wake of sorts (2019)null sails, kaolin clay, cowrie shells, galvanised steel, steel shackles, raffia, and sisal

variable dimensions

“pausing again, that time in Hayley Wood, ‘An ancient coppiced woodland with a fantastic display of oxlips in the spring’. A net masqueraded as an object that have been attributed to artist Dominique White. Because of this net in Hayley Wood, I started to imagine building a display, too.

Boundary + Gesture is an exhibition-as-research, which means: I try not to find things (objects) to put in the exhibition, but rather I try to put objects in an exhibition that enable me, and others, to find things (information).

Invited to commission a new, site specific body of work, artist Dominique White has constructed a haunting, a wake of sorts (2019) in the main gallery. This large-scale intervention comprised of null sails, kaolin clay, cowrie shells, galvanised steel, steel shackles, raffia, and sisal, was sculpted through White’s use of casting via desiccation, or, air drying to remove a liquid. She manipulates materials by employing tension, hanging weight and ripping fabric.”

“The final pamphlet presents an excerpt of writer, curator and artist Imani Robinson’s essay, Objects who Testify (2019) alongside two risograph reproductions of sketches by Dominique White. Both White and Robinson’s investigations, in congregation though not in unison, draw upon the writings of well-known theories of Subjectivity and Objecthood that are referred to in Robinson’s bibliography within the pamphlet. Most prominent in this essay is A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None by Kathryn Yusoff.”

excerpts of exhibition text by curator and writer Taylor Le Melle

ABANDON(ED) VESSELKevinspace, Vienna, 2019

Ruttier for the Absent, 2019null sail, sisal, kaolin clay, worn rope, destroyed palm, iron, raffia, residue from the

Mediterraneanvariable dimensions

“Conceived in July 2019 on the Italian island of Favignana, Ruttier for the Absent hung precariously as a beacon on the cusp of the Mediterranean Sea at Punta Marsala in the shadow of an abandoned lighthouse where the found materials—a sail, rope and dried palm fronds—had first been heavily mutilated by the artist, then destroyed by the force of the Mediterranean Sea. Translated into the white gallery space, the sculpture has now been manipulated by the artist with kaolin clay, a naturally occurring white clay often found on sculptures from Central and Western Africa as an act of cleansing and protecting the work from the exhibition space. Delicately balancing the states of preservation, decay and renewal, the sculpture is held by two massive iron hooks reminiscent of mutilated anchors or meat hooks. Whilst seemingly permanent and violent in their nature, these metal components lack any kind of patina and are thus left exposed to an unknown rate of decay.

The floorpiece Sargasso: An Ode to those who are yet to find their way Home borrows its title from the Sargasso Sea, often described as an oceanic desert largely devoid of tangible life forms due to the free-floating sargassum (a common seaweed found in the Sargasso Sea ) forming a black void beneath its tightly bound surface. Geographically situated in the heart of the Bermuda triangle in the North Atlantic, the Sargasso Sea remains the only sea without a land boundary in the world and is often associated with the historical myth of being a dangerous area where “dead ships, dead sailors and dead slaves” ( Brand 2001) were wrecked and mired in its throes for eternity, unable to escape. Echoing the long stretches of seaweed in this area, the sculpture consists of two iron hooks and an increasing number of clay buoys (or lost souls) consumed by a mass of meticulously hand woven nets—the mind-numbing and repetitive movements of their making evoking the consumption of mourning. The sculpture is conceived as an ongoing work in progress intended to grow larger over an undisclosed amount of time.”

excerpt of exhibition text for the solo exhibition ‘Abandon(ed) Vessel’ at Kevinspace in 2019.co-written by Kevinspace and Dominique White

Sargasso: An Ode to those who are yet to find their way Home , 2019 sisal, kaolin clay, raffia, iron

variable dimensions

CURVA BLU 2019INCURVA Residency program, Favignana Island, 2019

FUGITIVE OF THE STATE(LESS)VEDA, Florence, 2019

The undercommons, its maroons, are always at war, always in hiding.1

Beyond the State is the Stateless, a non-space with neither time nor restrictions. The Stateless is not the non-state, but an altered state in which Blackness exists unbothered. It is a utopia inhabited by the shipwrecked, the escaped and the free. The fugitive yearns for the Stateless. According to the Occupiers of the State, the Stateless and the fugitive do not exist and are not acknowledged; the fugitive must either be killed or choose self-destruction and pass into the Stateless by sea. Until then, the fugitive remains in limbo.

Dominique White’s sculptural installations consist of natural materials manipulated by wind, sea, and the artist herself. Often exhibited in states of suspension, the artist’s assemblages summon a range of presences and potentials (actual, virtual, historical, speculative) entangled with Black embodiment.

1 Harney, S. and Moten, F. (2013). The Undercommons. Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Wivenhoe: Minor Compositions.

Fugitive of the State(less) | 2019destroyed sail, palm fronds, tarred sisal, natural sisal,

kaolin clay, raffia, cowrie shells, dual-prong meat hook/cleat/anchor680 x 160 x 110 cm

Partially destroyed banana trees lie along a road after hurricane Matthew on the coast of Guantanamo province, Cuba on Oct 5, 2016

WORKS

Install view at Paris Internationale 2019 of the work

a Flag of Victory, a Trophy of Defeat | 2019sisal, kaolin clay, raffia, iron, sail

180 x 90 x 50 cm

Previous page:

Install view at Art-O-Rama 2019 of the works

And Death Shall Have No Dominion | 2019destroyed sail from the Mediterranean, hand woven sisal nets, residue from the Mediterranean,

raffia, kaolin clay, iron, cowrie shells220 x 155 x 88 cm

Outcasts of the Nations of this Earth | 2019sisal, iron, kaolin clay, raffia, cowries shells

350 x 80 cm

Though They Sink From the Sea, They Shall Rise Again | 2019destroyed sail from the Mediterranean, hand woven sisal nets, residue from the Mediterranean,

kaolin clay, iron200 x 65 x 160 cm

Landlocked Prisoner (2018) acts as an abstract commemorative sculpture that would have been dragged out of the Atlantic Ocean, a space which holds the memory of an underwater nation formed by the drowned enslaved people, an idea theorised and promoted by numerous afrofuturists --notably Drexciya--. The sculpture, primarily made out of tarred rope, which White manipulates and weaves to create large fishnet-like drapery, holds the cast of a buoy which, if returned to the ocean, would dissolve. The commemorative sculpture is thus, here, rendered impermanent, such as the memory it is holding.

words by Cédric Fauqfor a text accompanying

The Share of Opulence; Doubled; Fractional 

Landlocked Prisoner | 2018

Clay, tarred rope, rope, dried palm, destroyed sail, cowrie shells, raffia palm, hand carved wooden beads, used mooring cleat

Installation view of The Share of Opulence; Doubled; Fractional at Sophie Tappeiner

from September 14, 2018 to November 11, 2018

Images courtesy the artist and Sophie Tappeiner. Copyright: Kunstdokumentation.com

J.O.Y (the last signal) | 2018calico, raffia, clay, rope, dried palm, cowrie shells, sail, life jacket triple hook safety line

Photographed by Caustic Coastal for the show Signs as curated by Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton as part of the Beacons programme (2017-2018)

Following page: Extended caption for J.O.Y (the last signal) | 2018 released in a booklet after the end of the programme.

An eternity of Purgatory, A lifetime of Hell | 2017wood, raffia, kaolin, rope, buoys, palm, seagrass, paper, pencil

Photographed by Corey Bartle-Sanderson at Allen Road Sculpture Park by Graft Lancs (September - October 2017)

Following pages:

The Flag of Nowhere | 2017kaolin, calico, rotting dried palm leaves, raffia, buoys, cowrie shells

Self Portrait with Deep Sea Dweller | 2017

Ruzani Moleya in Deep Sea Dweller | 2017 during the fitting for A Study in Devotion | 2017

Naatal editorial/performance ‘A Study in Devotion’ at Market Peckham (14th and 15th of September 2017)

Courtesy of the artist and Adama Jalloh

Bankrupt Utopia (For Pateh Sabally) (2017) as shown stacked under A Beaconing Soul (2016) at Flood-tide at Love Unlimited, Glasgow (GB)

Still from footage taken by the artist in Favignana 2019

STATEMENT & CV

Dominique White (b. 1993, UK) weaves together the theories of Black Subjectivity, Afro-pessimism and Afro-futurism with the nautical myths of Black Diaspora into a term she defines as the Shipwreck(ed); a reflexive verb and state of being. Her sculptures demonstrate how Black life could extend beyond its own subjective limits and act as beacons or vessels of an ignored civilisation defined as the Stateless; a realm in which the past, present and future have converged into a Black Future.

White’s research reaches back to the sound of Detroit’s techno scene, where she continues to reference Afrofuturist narratives (situated in space and underwater) depicted by Aux 88 (Tom Tom and Keith Tucker), DJ Stingray (Sherard Ingram) and Drexciya (Gerald Donald and James Stinson). Her research also extends beyond the tangible, with a curiosity for both the destruction and mythicism that hurricanes in the Caribbean leave in their eternally transformative wake in the sea. Her visual vocabulary extends from nautical motifs such as destroyed sails, damaged hand-woven nets, mutilated anchors and soluble nautical buoys to decaying or volatile materials such as palm fronds, raffia and kaolin clay. She utilises this forceful unification as a means of forcefully dissociating the motifs from their original function and redefining them as bodies charged with retaliation and resilience. These works, or bodies, delicately balance the states of preservation, decay and destruction whilst emanating the sense that an event has/will/will never take place at any time whether there are witnesses or not

DOMINIQUE WHITE

b.1993, London

Education

BA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, 2012 - 2015Foundation in Art and Design, Central Saint Martins, 2012

Shows

2021 Ubuntu, a Lucid Dream Palais de Tokyo (FR) curated by Marie-Ann Yemsi (upcoming)2021 Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale San Marino 2021 (SM) (upcoming)2021 TBA [solo] VEDA (IT) (upcoming)

2020 Possédé·e·s, MO.CO (FR) (upcoming)

2019 Presentation with Aviva Silverman [duo], Paris Internationale (FR)2019 Boundary + Gesture [duo] Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (GB) curated by Taylor Le Melle2019 Abandon(ed) Vessel [solo] Kevin Space, Vienna (AUT)2019 solo presentation [solo] Art-O-Rama, Marseille (FR) winner of the Roger Pailhas prize2019 Fugitive of the State(less) [solo], VEDA, Florence (IT)

2018 Flood-tide. Love Unlimited, Glasgow (GB) 2018 The Share of Opulence; Doubled; Fractional. Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna (AUT)2018 °c. Clearview.ltd, London (GB)2018 Signs | Beacons. Caustic Coastal, Manchester (GB)

2017 Allen Road Sculpture Park. Artlicks, London (GB)2017 A Study in Devotion. MARKET Peckham, London (GB)2017 The Other’d Artist/s. Transmission, Glasgow (GB)2017 thirty/thirty. 12o Collective, online2017 In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Copeland Park & Bussey Building, London (GB)

2016 Our Sweet Souls [solo]. Limbo, London (GB) 2016 Standing in the Shade. Mile End Pavilion, London (GB)

2015 Utopian Ja. Reception Gallery, online2015 Goldsmiths BA Fine Art Degree Show. Goldsmiths, London (GB)

2014 Reception. DIG, London (GB)

Publications

2019 GU002 - Various Artists - Bubble Chamber Compilation. The Book of Drexciya2019 Curating for the Age of Blackness, Mousse #66 (IT)2018 Nataal Magazine, debut edition (GB/IT/ZA/US/SE/KE)2018 Skin Deep The Food Issue (GB)2017 We Apologise For The Delay To Your Journey Thick/er Black Lines at Tate Modern (GB)2016 Apogee Journal #8 (USA)2016 WHERE IS ANA MENDIETA Deep Sea (2016) (GB)

Media

2020 Artists struggling to work amid coronavirus, says Rachel Whiteread the Guardian (Mark Brown)

2019 DEMYSTIFYING THE WORLD OF CONTEMPORARY ART. Buro247 (Tamar Clarke-Brown)2019 ‘Abandon(ed) Vessel’ by Dominique White at Kevin Space, Vienna tzvetnik.online2019 Dominique White: Abandon(ed) Vessel Hugo Zorn2019 DOMINIQUE WHITE BEI KEVIN SPACE, WIEN Parnass Kunstmagazin: Kunst und Galerien2019 Marseille, ville-laboratoire Le Quotidien de l’Art (Pedro Morais)2019 Mountaincutters et Dominique White, lauréats d’Art-O-Rama Le Quotidien de l’Art (Pedro Morais)2019 Curva Blu IV Cura Magazine2019 A Favignana residenze per artisti della no-profit INCURVA. Intervista ai promotori Artribune (Claudia Giraud)2019 Fugitive of the State(less) - Dominique White [review] segnonline (Matteo Binci)2019 ‘Fugitive of the State(less)’ by Dominique White at VEDA, Florence Tzvetnik.online2019 Times Eye Film: Dominique White2019 Curating for the Age of Blackness Mousse 66 Winter 2019 (Cédric Fauq)

2018 Interview with Ellie Barrett. Young Artists in Conversation. December 20182018 The Share of Opulence. aqnb2018 ‘The Share of Opulence; Doubled; Fractional’,a Group Show Curated by Cédric Fauq at Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna tzvetnik.online2018 In Wien feiert das Festival CURATED BY die Stadt. 2018 [review] Monopol-Magazin (November 2018 print)2018 THE SHARE OF OPULENCE; DOUBLED; FRACTIONAL @ SOPHIE TAPPEINER, PAUL MAHEKE, LETTER TO A BARN OWL @ KEVINSPACE [review] (White Pube)2018 CURATED BY_VIENNA 2018 review [review] Spike Magazine (Max L. Feldman)2018 Beacons | Signs [review] Corridor8 (Claire Walker)2018 The Art of Performance Notion Magazine

2017 A Study In Devotion Nataal Media

2016 “Should You Buy Art Online” Harper’s Bazaar online (Legacy Russell, Haniya Rae)2016 “LAST CHANCE: Standing In The Shade – Mile End Art Pavilion” Fad Magazine (Mark Westall)

talks etc

2020 Backend London. 12ø collective. (25/01/2020)

2019 Affordance w/ Francesco Tenaglia, Alessio Baldissera Guest Dominique White. Radio Raheem Milano. 2019 If Words Could Float - part 1. Sissi Club, Marseille (FR) (31/08/2019)2019 The Artists Journey #2. Bloc Projects/Sheffield Hallam University (14/02/2019)

2018 The Conch, South London Gallery, London (GB) (27/04/18)

2017 Artist talk and Q&A, Allen Road Sculpture Park, London (GB)

Residencies

2021 La Becque, La Tour-de-Peilz (CH)

2020 Triangle France - Astérides, Marseille (FR) 2020 Triangle Network Fellowship: Sagrada Mercancía Santiago (CHL)

2019 Curva Blu, Favignana (IT)

2018 Formerly Called, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (GB)

2016 Limbo, London (GB)

grants/prizes

2020 Henry Moore Foundation’s Artist’s Award [grant] (GB)2020 Art Angel: Thinking Time [grant] Artangel (GB)2019 Develop Your Creative Practice [grant]. Arts Council England (GB) 2019 Roger Pailhas [prize] at Art-O-Rama (FR)

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