Josh Lilley is pleased to present 40 Knots and How to Tie Them, the inaugural exhibition of US-based artist Autumn Wallace (b. 1996, Philadelphia, PA).

Taking its title from an instructional rope-binding book, Wallace draws an analogy between the complex and intricate nature of knots and relational dynamics; two systems of codependence that are reliant on friction, and which, when formed, become weight-bearing masses. The analogy forms an entry point to Wallace’s macrocosm, populated by a web of interconnected characters who give way to a rigorous re-interpretation of value systems, identity politics and institutional hierarchies. Cast in neo-mythologic vignettes, Wallace’s characters inhabit a land which transcends time and space. Taking on the narrative qualities of fables, the stories act as warnings, prophecies and moral tales in service of alternative experience, particularly of the black Femme and diasporic community. Scavenging a range of historic sources and accounts - from religious iconography and folkloric knowledge to German Expressionism and the ornate sensibilities of Byzantine aesthetics - Wallace’s heavily research-based practice confounds existing stereotypes, instead offering more open-ended and multi-layered propositions.

Through paintings and sculptures, we are introduced to the protagonists in various forms and engagements. Some new, some more familiar, each character grows as their audience does with every context or challenge - in this case, drawing inspiration from specific knots and their volatile energy. In Yellow Pages, we see the character Tangier replicating the parasitic qualities of the Bachman knot; a friction hitch used in climbing. Reliant on the strength of others to survive, Tangier is wrestling NayNay in an attempt to steal their hair bonnet - an aegis against danger and disrepair. Hair is a recurrent theme in Wallace’s works, drawn on as both a source of literal and figurative security in the black community and as a heavily canonised symbol of power, its protection and loss deeply tied to acts of oppression or vulnerability which are resonant across the diaspora.

Rescue knots and ties perform a similar function throughout - their dualities as both mechanisms of survival and threats to life mirroring the oscillating ten-
sions of relationships, and their mark on personal growth. Through this poetic framework, Wallace connects us to a fragile social ecosystem and the identities that hang in the balance, which must be treated with care.

Inspired by extended periods of residency in Europe, Wallace enlists pre-enlightenment, arcane belief systems as modes of productive storytelling, treating everyday activities with the veneration of church tableaux, or Classical doctrine with new guises. An absurdist or sometimes Dix-ian treatment of the figure, abstract and grotesque at times, draws us deep into its sensibility. Montage performs a catalytic role, as serial representations question the fidelity of memory and advocate for the virtue of the interstices. Likewise, the patchwork of Wallace’s sculptures draws a line towards lost stories or remnants of the past. Using offcuts and assorted discontinued fabric rems, Wallace invents new forms with scraps, honouring the survivalist techniques of oppressed and colonised communities. African American folk art forms a touchstone within the exhibition, drawing on the traditions of a memory jug, a highly embellished vessel which memorialises the dead. Inspired by both its melting-pot qualities and its ornamental surface, Wallace engages with the memory jug as an abstract form of chronicle, as well as reflecting its materiality through dense beading, providing each work with a complex and unpredictable tonality.

Autumn Wallace takes us to fantastical places, where orthodoxies crash against the tides of time, and break open new horizons. Their toolbox is one of peripheral forces; things relegated to memory, mnemonics and other unmeasurable fonts - instruments for reinvention. Through these, we are welcomed into a new universe, filled with elliptical magic, but never too far from the well-heeled burden of experience. Two sides of the same knot.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an artist book created by Autumn Wallace, including a number of hand-crafted special editions, due for release this summer.