The inaugural exhibition at Kip is 'Withdrawing', a solo presentation of new works by Unyimeabasi Udoh. The exhibition comprises a new series of stencil drawings on matt duralar, alongside 'Sleep Timer' (2021/2024), a two-channel digitally animated video.
The drawings are made through a process of erasure; black forms are rendered in pencil, then parts of the graphite are removed tracing the hollow spaces of alphabet stencils, a circle master, and various measuring tools. Udoh’s removal of the markings produces a reversed imprint of the lettering and drafting objects, like a photographic negative. The void is no longer depicted as a black surface – a representation of supposed nothingness – instead becoming what appears to be blank space in the milky transparent plastic film, where traces of the erasure mingle with the surface visible below.
On 11 January, the opening day of Withdrawing, there is a new moon, marking the start of a lunar cycle. This is the moon phase where 'Sleep Timer' (2021/2024) begins, with one screen as a tabula rasa. As the minutes on a round clock face nearby quickly turn into hours, then days, a waxing crescent appears. Every two minutes 24 hours pass. There is a brief moment where there are two identically sized circular objects visible – time and space in perfect harmony – before the moon wanes and eventually shrinks away completely.
As is the case with the ruler, protractor and triangle, the ‘invention’ of mechanical time in the form of the clock can be categorised as part of the human obsession with measuring and organising life into comprehensible units. This shift away from telling the time by the sun, moon, and stars to being regulated by the rhythm of minute hands and alarm clocks has completely altered the nature of work, and subsequently spare time and sleep.
“Is what I give you enough?”, is one of the questions the clock poses, addressing a sleeping ‘you’. The digits are removed, reducing the passing of time to a formal reading of lines in space. Like the moon, it can only ever show one face, yet its words hold many double meanings.
'Withdrawing' shifts between legibility and ambiguity. The construction of meaning through symbols and language is inherently slippy and in Udoh’s works this indeterminacy is drawn to the forefront; always at hand but not fully graspable.
Unyimeabasi Udoh (b. 1996, USA) lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include A Gain at Night Café, London (2023); Ave at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2023); Free + Open at the Design Museum of Chicago (2022); Wayfinding at LVL3, Chicago (2022); Lifelinien at Scotty, Berlin (2022); Title Case at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Chicago (2021); and Raisin at 6018North as part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago (2021). Udoh holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from Columbia University. Most recently, Udoh was the 2022–23 Starr Fellow at the Royal Academy of Arts.
* artist’s chosen floor colour: Sky Blue (ral 5105)