I am often asked what the islanders believe, in relation to A or B, but they’re a cosmopolitan bunch with widely ranging views, so this is a difficult question to answer.

If there is a consensus, however, it is of a rational bent. They prefer to argue the possibility of ultimate truth or otherwise through the medium of the many philosophical salons that occur in the warmth of the bars and clubs of Onomatopoeia: the island’s capital city.

Rather this than venture into the vast, inhospitable and subjective wilderness that falls way beyond the city walls, in search of it.

In the participation of the ‘Eternal Dialectic’—as these meetings are collectively known—they are avid, for they are much more interested in the texture of propositions than the proof, and in drinking.– Charles Avery

Pilar Corrias Gallery is pleased to present The People and Things of Onomatopoeia: Part 2—the latest installment of Charles Avery’s epic project, The Islanders.

Since 2005, Avery has devoted his practice to the depiction of a ctional island with its own population, customs, cosmology, and architecture, expressed through the form of large-scale drawings, sculptures, installations, texts, and moving image.

Avery’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery brings together new drawings—including a huge vista of the inner circle of Onomatopoeia Zoo—portraits, furniture, jewellery, posters, and bibelots, giving an insight into The Islander’s culture.

Charles Avery (b. 1973 in Oban, Scotland) lives and works in London and Mull. Selected solo exhibitions include: Study #15: Charles Avery, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (forthcoming 2017);What’s the matter with Idealism?, Gemeente Museum, The Hague (2015); g-2 2/50 Charles Avery, ICA Studio, London (2015).

Selected group exhibitions include: Exhibition paintings, Kunst Meran, Merano (forthcoming 2017); Drawing Conclusions, RISD Museum, Providence (2016); The Improbable City, Edinburgh Art Festival 2015, Edinburgh (2015); Feels like Heaven, Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2014); Intenzione Manifesta, Castello di Rivoli (curated by Beatrice Merzand Marianna Vecellio), Turin (2014); Generation: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2014).

Avery represented Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, participated in the British Art Show 7 and Folkestone Triennial in 2011, and was included in: Altermodern, 4th TATE Triennial in 2009, the Taipei Biennial – The Great Acceleration: Art in the Anthropocene, curated by Nicholas Bourriaud in 2014, and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi Biennale Foundation, Kunnumpuram in 2016.