Panopticon: The Unsettled Body
April 14 – June 18, 2023, Three Highgate Gallery / Ainalaiyn Space, London, UK
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Nurakhmet's first solo exhibition outside Kazakhstan, co-presented by Ainalaiyn Space and Three Highgate Gallery. Drawing on Jeremy Bentham's panopticon concept as a metaphor for state control and the reduction of citizens to bodies and statistics, the show presented large-scale paintings, drawings, and collages.
Faceless and often headless nude figures are staged in Vermeer-like interiors with stark lighting, influenced by Arshile Gorky and Lee Krasner. Works include Waiting Room (2018), Short Cut (2021), and Garden Time (2021). Curator: Indira Dyussebayeva-Ziyabek, assisted by Phoebe Bradley-White.
Installation
Works
Punishment II, 2020, Oil on canvas, 80.0 cm × 80.0 cm Discipline, 2021, Oil on canvas, 125.0 cm × 150.0 cm Punishment, 2020, Oil on wood, 76.0 cm × 75.0 cm Discipline II, 2022, Oil on canvas, 180.0 cm × 200.0 cm Untitled, 2022, Oil on canvas, 60.0 cm × 80.0 cm Good person, 2023, Oil on canvas, 100.0 cm × 100.0 cm I Never Left the Room, 2022, Oil on canvas, 105.0 cm × 155.0 cm Classroom, 2020, Oil on canvas, 150.0 cm × 200.0 cm Back to the Future, 2022, Oil on canvas, 150.0 cm × 150.0 cm Cosmonauts, 2021, Oil on canvas, 200.0 cm × 200.0 cm Object of Information 4, 2021, Graphite and collage on paper, 101.0 cm × 71.0 cm Object of Information 3, 2020, Graphite and collage on paper, 101.0 cm × 71.0 cm Object of Information, 2020, Graphite and collage on paper, 101.0 cm × 71.0 cm