ArtMoorHouse il delighted to present Dialectical Materialism, an exhibition of artworks by David Degreef-Mounier, Phil Dobson and Ileana Arnaoutou, three London based artists who approach their work from different directions - intention towards intuitive form, light balanced with matter, representation of an abstract idea – but who can ultimately find common ground.

There emerges in this display different dialogues, between the artists and their material, between the artists and the external world, or Nature, and also between the works shown.

These give rise to new syntheses, new forms, new ideas.

David Degreef-Mounier

David Degreef-Mounier's work is process-based. He uses materials for their ability to be transformed, for their malleability and their metamorphic properties, in order to explore new landscape of the mind.

His research revolves around a Lacan quotation: "I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think". It translates in his work by a series of ongoing experiments, where, by rejecting expectations and preconceptions, he is able to accept what is happening here and now.

He states: "Art is not simply an object, nor does it exist solely in the mind. Rather it is the relationship between the two”.

Phil Dobson

Along with the development of his technique of layering and sanding acrylic, building up relief and then eroding it, an acknowledgment in the resulting flatness of a schematic way of representing the world, and in the process, of its temporal nature, he has developed the language of the work's various strands, combining amorphous form and precise delineation, the fluidity of paint with the rigour of geometry, the symbolic colour of maps with the luminosity of stained glass.

Ileana Arnaoutou

The stepping-stone of every work of mine is a walk, a treasure haunt in the city. Discarded objects have always intrigued my creativity, as inspired by the culture of my country, I believe that every element has its own history and forms by that way its own character. I feel like rescuing objects and materials, bringing them back to life, by dismantling and combining them together, by lighting them up.

I perceive my sculptures as a 3D collage, which due to its versatile dimensions provides me with the opportunity to unfold new ideas, ways of creation and combinations. Light plays a pivotal role in my work. It contradicts the bold and dark nature of the discarded pieces, creating an amazing contrasting balance. This balance is directly linked to the conceptual aspect of my work. Balance in all sort of levels.

The scale is an object that has triggered me for a long time. More specifically the ancient Egyptian ritual of weighing the heart has played a pivotal role in building up my conceptual aspect of the works. Weighing the heart with a feather, for me is an amazing symbolic structure, which is mostly present in everything in life. My aim is to create and imagine scales, imagine the possible two sides, imagine their relationship.

My sculptures weight light and colour with matter, soul with human body. The “results” and combinations are infinite and that is what makes me want to create.