Matt’s Gallery, 2–24 November 2019

The lying. The lies. 

The loathing. The distaste. 

The name calling. 

The hot air of rant-rousing slivers, 

deaf to inequity.

Tongue-tied is a collection of mute tongues that emit no words but communicate through pigment and shape. Static and singular, they divulge, bare and reveal. One vulnerable, another bold; ventriloqual expressions of cadence and timbre, of pattern, patter and the patois of speech.

Some are flamboyant, seductive and blustering, others compulsively lie and fib. Jargonistic, they leak lingo, wag and promise. Phoney phoneticians tie reality in knots, while foolish flap clappers, slippery with prejudice, are coiled with hostility.

Hungry and hoarse with disparity, others stutter through each precarious day; week; month; year. Invisible lexicons of disregarded glossaries. Unheard utterances on disenfranchised lips. Vulnerability on the tips of many.

Imagine the watercolours releasing themselves from their frames. Away from the wall, estranged tongues return to mouths and there is movement, exchange and dialogue; heart-to-hearts and tête-à-têtes. One tongue chatters and another natters; communicating in different languages and dialects. Kindness lingers on lips. Voices care, vocabularies are shared and the tender, persistent and precarious tongues come together.

Works presented in Tongue-tied were selected from an incidental archive of over 500 drawings, watercolours, texts and knitted textiles made since June 2018, all of which trace personal responses to a time of uncertainty and turbulence.

Unvisible, March 2019. 9 watercolours on paper, 14.8 x 21 cm each

Two Balls, July-August 2019. Knitted Tongues, dimensions variable.

Tongue Ties, 11 tongues/ties, one knitted each day during the proroguing of parliament, between the 10th and 24th of September 2019.

All Images by Jonathan Bassett. Courtesy of the artist and Matt's Gallery, London.