Ceal Floyer

Inside the Lisson Gallery’s white cube are more white cubes. These are formed from stacked sheets of paper, an oblong projection of paper and a room full of painted white speakers, belching fragments of songs as the viewer weaves around them. These speakers look a little like paper too. But, despite stripping her latest solo show down to bare essentials, Floyer manages to retain more than simply aesthetic coherency. In fact these humble beginnings serve to heighten the viewer’s appreciation of Floyer’s poetic imagination, proving that even from the most basic of ingredients she can concoct beautiful artworks.

Upstairs, a projection of a blank sheet of paper slowly descends the screen into the hungry hum of a fax machine out of shot. It reveals another sheet beneath it. The process fills the entire space, creating a meditative atmosphere; a pleasant corollary for a generally irritating process. The film also acts as a tantalising glimpse of what is only implied in the show’s opening space where 11083 sheets are piled. The top sheet reads ‘page 11083 of 11083’ but whether the remaining thousands propped beneath it are accorded the same level of documentation is only implied - the curiosity induced in the viewer makes it tempting to check.

This stack of paper mirrors the shape of the speakers located at the back of the gallery. Random sounds spurt out of these, isolated from their origins and glorified as fragments. Much like the preceding works, by focusing on one element rather than the whole that it forms a part of, Floyer refreshes the mundane and the familiar, prompting us to look again at what is all around us.