Kunsthall Stavanger is proud to present the first exhibition in Norway by British-Thai artist Mark Corfield-Moore. Titled We Speak Chicken, the exhibition is an expanded version of a major new body of work commissioned by and exhibited at Goldsmiths CCA, London earlier this year, with new commissions created by the artist specifically for Kunsthall Stavanger.
In these works, the artist utilizes a hybrid practice of painting and weaving to render images of buildings and spaces based on his lived experience and memories of family and childhood. Corfield-Moore is particularly drawn to the weaving technique of ikat, a process that he learnt in Northern Thailand during his final year of postgraduate study, due to its 'glitchiness' or what he calls a 'fizzy heat'. Eschewing the traditional method of tie-dying, he paints directly onto the warp threads and then winds the yarn onto the loom, which further distorts the subject matter. The points at which the legibility of the image begins to fray or sparkle offer an apt metaphor for the plasticity of memory and our evolving relationship with the past.
The exhibition's title refers to the fact that Corfield-Moore and his Thai mother do not share a common language, but rather food and cooking become means to converse, exchange, and demonstrate love. This sense of generosity through oblique modes of communication is evident in the artist's playful combination of text and image across each of these paintings, inviting us into their visual poetics.