Bright Dynasty, Phoenix Art Space 2022

Bright Dynasty is about an ever expanding sense of being at home on different scales, spectrums and frequencies, within the universe, land, architectures and dwellings, with other people, ecologies, within oneself and beyond. A sanctuary for ritual intimately examining materials, forms, and processes of transformation, seeking to expand our awareness of the multitude of mutable relations which create the structures in the world around us, shaping our identities, and our internal worlds. An ongoing enquiry examining the fabric and spirit of life within organic and geometric motifs and arrangements, seeking to extend our awareness of the movement between internal and exterior planes: spatial, poetic, perceptual and metaphorical dimensions echoing across works in sculpture, painting, film, dance, and text. Each personifying the essential qualities and changing states of selfhood.

A series of paintings from 2021 diarise the artist’s nebulous and exacting somatic choreographic process and his embodied encounters dancing within the work. These paintings articulate and map physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual states that journey through, and find home within, the body. Completing one another, this series is a chart of journeys and choreographic relations, abstract devices that Adam uses to navigate and move through Bright Dynasty.

A pair of assembled sculptural works, Tropic of Taurus and Tropic of Sagittarius (2022), bind together and suspend terrestrial and marine formations in varying compositions and scales, totems expressive of the multiplicities within cosmological events and time, and ecological, geological, architectural, geographic and historical origins and identities referencing the artist’s English and Saint Lucian heritage, drawing influence from the history of the Saint Lucian flag and Saint Lucian agrarian cultures, astronomy, and astrology.

A series of round hanging sculptures Earth body is round in finite sunrise I, II, and III (2022) explore life and death, time, location, orientation, and distance. Cycles and revolutions; lunation; floating; orbits, eclipses, shade and shadow form layers in Adam’s somatic embodied choreographic process dancing in Bright Dynasty.

The Infinite sunset series of graphite and watercolour paintings (2022) explore truth, perspective, refraction, and tessellation taking in and connecting works across the exhibition in film, sculpture and dance. These notions form a layer in Adam’s somatic embodied choreographic process dancing in Bright Dynasty.

Infinite sunset series (2022). Graphite and watercolour on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm.

Infinite Sunset I-V (2022). Graphite and watercolour on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm. Hand bound bamboo, Forest Gate, UK, jute rope. Shown here installed at Phoenix Art Space June 2022.

A quartet of silent single channel films Blaze, Course, Drift, Rockslide (2022) contemplate the substance and transitions of elemental forces. Projected onto the walls these films give pause within the installation works to reflect on our relationship with elemental forces. Where do we find these in our lives, what do their symbolic, experiential, and familiar states communicate to us? How we might transition between embodiments of these forces forms a layer in Adam’s somatic embodied choreographic process dancing in Bright Dynasty.

A collection of unique glazed earthenware ceramics, Carcharadon Carcharias I-VII (2021) render a familiar motif allegorical and enigmatic through repetition, material meditations focussed on the mysteries below the surface of the sea and beneath the level of human and ecological consciousness. Repetition and reappearance, mystery, and allegory form a layer in Adam’s somatic embodied choreographic process dancing in Bright Dynasty.

Through the polysemous and associative nature of these accumulating collections of works Moore weaves a poetic scrutiny of material and colonial histories parallel to formalist interrogations of minimalism, abstraction, and Arte Povera.

Searching within the accumulation of recurring motifs and their relations, Moore sharpens his awareness to the familiar and the unknown, dancing in the space created by the different forms and compositions. The materials and processes at play become transformational allies through a series of performances interweaving dance with the installation design. Each performance retunes the exhibition, creating new vistas and relationships between works, artist, and audience.

Download exhibition text here

Read and listen to Affirmation from Bright Dynasty here

Performance photography by Phoebe Wingrove and Jenni Lewin-Turner
Exhibition photographs by Bernard G Mills, Jenni Lewin-Turner, and Adam Moore.

Special thanks to

Lucy Day
Belinda Greenlagh
Kitty Bew
Ainoa Burgos
and the front of house team at Phoenix