The invitation to contribute to the “Unrulyscapes” joint exhibition at the To And For gallery in North London was extended by Kasia Molga, who was showing work rooted in maps and locality. Taey responded to this context by extending her interest in text within art-works, linguistic transformation, language as embedded in cartography and dialogue across diasporic experiences.
The work is entitled with the neologism “Contranstellations”, denoting the importance of fluctuating vocabulary, prefixes concerned with transit and concordance. Text statements, markers, reminders, rejoinders and signs and suggestions are scattered across a field suggestive of the night sky or a classroom chalkboard.
The text emerges from the surface almost organically, reassuringly consistent, except for the inverted and mirrored and blacked-out title. The text pieces are accompanied by metal markers to invite the formation of patterns, language structure, symbolic aggregates of linguistic material.
An orange thread, a long-standing motif within Taey's work, suggestive of a route marker, apparition and triangulation station, forms the relationships between the suns of text.
Taey continues to hone her articulation of travelling languages and conjuring of distance, dictation and diaspora.