Freya Gabie
Monuments
These drawings have come out of a response to my partner and I finding ourselves living in Central London for the last few years, on a form of artist residency, just off Oxford Street in W1.
One of the peculiarities of living where we do is there’s no formal way to dispose of rubbish; instead, it is left on the pavement for one of several collection services to pick up. Subsequently, brightly coloured, exuberant mounds, heaps, spills, and tumbles of debris propagate. Approaching and retreating throughout the day; shiny surfaced, thick ribboned bags reflecting the interiors and fonts of surrounding shops, are coupled with upturned yoghurt pots, a smatter of cold chips, a lost shoe.
Over the time spent here, I’ve come to enjoy this quiet invasion, piles take over the streets in a way that not many seem to notice. At times encroaching across the entire pavement, forcing walkers to weave in between tottering piles of boxes and slumps of cerise slick refuse sacks, that have the look of large licked lollies. They have become members of a cast, they have attitudes, they give off different airs. They have also offered introductions: I’ve become the collector of these scenes, and in doing so, I’ve met the people who also participate in this unnoticed landscape, those who sweep the streets, those who sweep the unwanted accumulations for things that they need, even on occasion, the people divesting themselves.
Drawing has become a small act of bearing witness, of documenting these transient monuments. On a street parallel to ours, there is a man who is also doing this. He collects great islands of shopping bags, processing them and exhibiting them in bright lines along the pavement. He is my archaeologist of W1. Excavating our empty vessels, plumping them out, and standing them up, mouths gaping open at the sky.
Freya Gabie studied sculpture at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art. Her work is site responsive and she regularly works collaboratively with individuals and communities in the UK and abroad, from opera singers, clog dancers, and archaeologists, to iron miners, and many people in between. She has exhibited and been commissioned widely, both internationally and in the UK. Previous projects include; ‘Duet’ The Bar, El Paso, USA, a project and exhibition arising from spending three months working with different communities along the US/Mexico border, ‘All Fired Up’ a collaborative commission with Historic England responding to the Ceramic Industry of Stoke on Trent and Poole, ‘Hold The Line’ Journeying aboard the Dr Fridtjof Nansen vessel with the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research down the South West coast of Africa, ‘Leonardo Da Vinci, A life in Drawing’ Bristol Museum, Palsmuseum, Sweden, Châteaux De Bosmolet, Diep-Haven Festival France, USF Art Centre, Norway, Neo: Bolton, 108 New York, Fljótstunga Iceland and, Franconia Sculpture Park USA. She is currently undergoing a commission for UCL for the new neurological research hospital being built on Grays Inn Road for the IoN, DRI, and UCLH, and is currently exhibiting in the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.
