Faye Wei Wei | the sounds of the organ pushing the walls of the cathedral outwards

13 March - 6 April 2024

Overview

The Clown's Harpoon Room

Foam from a nearby jet wash splatters the silk flowers which line the car lot at Jumbo's. It causes a layer of white lint to cover the plywood Head in the Hole which flanks the club's entrance, Jack puts his face through and becomes a painted jester screwing his mouth as the soap snow hits his lips. The muffled sound of Crystal Gale's 'Talking in Your Sleep' plays from a bracket in the ceiling as we walk through the set of steel doors. Framed on each wall are stacked velvet paintings of the bar's namesake clown. A girl in a plastic wig evades my eyes as she dances on a laminate podium. She dismounts the stage when the radium dial of a dark clock reads 01.23 am and a vacant spotlight replaces her.

Excerpt of a text by Lowe Poulter

Faye Wei Wei (b.1994 in London, UK) graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in London, UK (BA Hons) in 2016.

British painter Faye Wei Wei's bold, poetic works quiver with a lively, lyrical motion, combining classical poise with vibrant immediacy. Working on a large scale, Wei Wei conceives of the painting process as an intimate choreography between actual and pictorial space. Often revolving around spiritual iconography and classical myth, love rituals and the theatricality of gender, her works sometimes suggest the themes of particular mythic narratives, and at other moments seem to depart into a more ambiguous, interior space of incongruity and uncertainty. Stateliness coincides with brute force and pastel softness; symbols seem to shake free of their moorings and float, surrealistically, on the liquid expanse of dream. The scenes might be imagined, but the energetic, bold brushstrokes, executed in thin layers, suggest something actually witnessed, balanced on the edge of reality.

Works

Press release

The Clown’s Harpoon Room

Foam from a nearby jet wash splatters the silk flowers which line the car lot at Jumbo’s. It causes a layer of white lint to cover the plywood head in the hole that flanks the club's entrance, Jack puts his face through and becomes a painted jester, screwing his mouth as the soap snow hits his lips. The muffled sound of Crystal Gale’s ‘Talking in Your Sleep’ plays from a bracket in the ceiling as we walk through the set of steel doors. Framed on each wall are stacked velvet paintings of the bar's namesake clown. A girl in a plastic wig evades my eyes as she dances on a laminate podium. She dismounts the stage when the radium dial of a dark clock reads 01.23 a.m. and a vacant spotlight replaces her.

“It’s not working,” I say as I pull through my pocket, looking for the blister pack of NyQuil.

We met through an online forum for people suffering from insomnia in late May, and every evening since then, we would try to exhaust each other, traipsing through the city, moving from closing bar to closing bar.

His home, just a few streets over from mine, was a single-story, vacant bar, a few pieces of furniture, and a large collection of Harpoons and crossbows bracketed to each wall that he had collected since he was a teenager.

Often, I would lay next to him. He would close his eyes, and we would lull each other to sleep. Sleep hangs over us like a soft question mark.

Delirium and I rode the ghost train up to the fourth floor of my apartment and opened the lock with my keys, on which a lacquered sampuru cherry keychain hangs. I close the blinds in my narrow room and walk over to my desk, which is littered with unsent greeting cards I purchased from an expensive stationary shop downtown. I sit on the stool and rest my head. I pull one from its envelope, unfold it into a concertina diamond, and draw out a message on its edges.

The next evening in Jack’s garage, we practiced harpoon. “You have to hold it with two hands, or you won't hit your mark,” he yawns.

I take aim, and Jack slumps like a balloon losing air. For a moment, I think I have hit him with my barb, but there I see it planted firmly in the breezeblock. A hole is torn through the blown up face of Christian Bale, who looks out at us both from a 2004 reproduction poster of‘The Machinist’. I pull it out—dust pools on the floor. With both hands, I gently place the lance on his chest, sleeping, I leave the room.

Text by Lowe Poulter

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