Exhibition Opening: 'SMPLE'

South London based artists Zanis Miverniks and Emma Read create their first debut show ‘SMPLE’. Presenting their interpretation of Cultural inconvenience, packed with canvases, sculptures, prints, photography and video pieces at the Maverick Projects in Peckham from 19th - 22nd August 2017.

Zanis Miverniks
Born and raised within the late 90’s, Within a segregated and alienated Latvia, Kolka. Has been the question of culture within Zanis’s practice. In which the use of print, paint, sculpture and video photography is manifested as a neo expression of cultural aspects such as music, politics, and art itself.
The idea of the written and the visually represented can be seen throughout Zanis’s prints in which he focuses upon self-interpreted music, generated from the past and the present. Such musicians as Led Zeppelin, Father John Misty, Allah-Las and White Stripes to name a few are mentioned within typographical prints. Opposing the placement of personal family photographs creating the tension of intended purpose and interpretation of an art from. Focusing almost as if the works are biographical, creating a certain tension between the artist, the work and the audience.
“My focus upon music is simple, it’s my expression and relation between others. Questioning what Zeppelin is representing to me and my life within Stairway to Heaven.”
This biographical approach can also be sensed in more political works. Raising the question of historical tragedies such as the Red Iron curtain upon the Baltic States. Representations of executions and Soviet memorabilia are created upon dramatical, self-expressive canvases. This focused approach upon historical roots and political views are contrasted with the use of materials within large scale canvases. Manmade and elemental materials are a constant exploration such as motor oil, coil and sand.
“My political choices and views are only fuelled by the spitting alienation of Kolka, a ghost town and a remembrance of ‘the better days’ with the controlling system of communism. This was just a natural thing to do. To create and repeat a massive fuck you to the past and piss all over it.”

Emma Read
As an understanding of her generation, Read’s message focusses on the Simplification and complication in the explanation of convince culture. As a continuation of understanding its emergence focusing on how it's evolved to become a language of its own. Her work points the finger at the use of this simplified language when presenting a complicated message. She utilities material, easy to manipulate, symbolic of a population how we can be deceived by a black and white explanation. Repetition reinforces the reference to convince culture. Reoccurring forms are found throughout her work, overlaying them to remove the clarity that they once held. Hence showing the ironic and comical nature of a resultant ‘anti convince’. Revealing this message through a dramatic scale were the predominate use if sculpture caters to our need for an entertaining vessel.

139 Copeland Road SE15 3SN (3 minutes walk from Peckham Rye Station)