ISOBEL ATACUS
there but for the

11 September-18 October 2025

GUIDED TOUR WITH PORTUGUESE SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER | October 18 at 18:00
WORKSHOP FOR CHILDREN | October 4 at 10:30 (with Ana Salomé Paiva)
SUPPORT | Zaratan – Arte Contemporânea is an entity supported by República Portuguesa – Cultura, Juventude e Desporto / Direção-Geral das Artes / Direção-Geral das Artes

«Loose limbed, shake off the drips sheer – pool of it – the up and down and out of place of it – take the rough with the smooth and the glitch with    ______________    _________»                                        

The starting point for this exhibition is a youtube video of an owl floating in a swimming pool, its wings outstretched to keep it afloat. I don’t know how the owl got there, or what I feel about it, so I’m going to watch the video over and over again. Slow it down, zoom in. While I think about this, I stand over here, crouch down a bit, the lower shelf where my printer sits, slowly spilling images, a catalogue from 1936, or rather: photos of the images taken with my phone, so this image includes the page and the space between (89 years of it). If I can hold it, I can get a sense of it, but my printer is running out of ink. The images come out glitchy, ruptured, a new set of marks that take them somewhere else.  If I can make it bigger, if I can stretch it out a bit, that bit of feather, with this bit of glitch, pause and try again. If I can poke my fingers in, the chance and luck and collision of it, find a stone with a hole through the middle, or rather _____ a single salty crisp. The chorus of collaborators, including the weather, my mood, yesterday, the person you met on the street. Nothing behaves as I expect it to. Something always intervenes to take things in a different direction. I don’t believe in divine intervention, yet…
(Text: Isobel Atacus)

BIOGRAPHY: ISOBEL ATACUS is an artist living and working in London (UK). Her practice incorporates sculpture, text and performance, through which she questions the fleeting and ambiguous nature of interactions that take place in the physical realm. Playfully re-directing and re-describing the streams of information that come at us from all sides, Atacus creates scenarios and encounters where rules are wilfully misapplied. Her curatorial work, teaching and pedagogy frequently take collaborative form, and she is completing a practice-based PhD between King’s College London and the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. Alongside her individual practice she directs the icing room artist run space. Recent solo exhibitions include Undercover reach, the argo annex, Athens (GR), and sometimes when, St. Margaret’s House Chapel, London (UK). Recent group shows include The Wicker Arms, Staffordshire St., London (UK), All mouth no trousers, Three Rooms, London (UK), Clinging on, twoplustwo, London (UK) and The floor is lava, 125 Shaftesbury Avenue, London (UK).

LINK: https://isobelatacus.com/