Janina McQuoid presents for her first solo show a series of works that take over the gallery space creating a familiar but estranging environment. The hand cutted foam takes different shapes, it becomes an hybrid between sculpture and furniture, artwork and object.

The exhibition space ceases to be ethereal and becomes functional.

In the attempt to control a material that doesn´t want to be controlled and cut into perfect shapes, the artist turns to words. As Jeremy Bentham did in the XVIII century, she explores the field of neologisms and language. All the perfection that one should expect from the cuts, McQuoid delivers playing with words that express discipline, control and behaviour. The key is the material, its colour, its shape, its softness. Like something extremely human it needs language to communicate with the viewer, but at the same time its ultimate means of communication isn’t language but materiality, feel and sense.

“A smile is a sword”… I wanted someone to tell me what they think of

it, in most cases people ask me, worried: “You think so?”. I do not

know if I think it or not, but I think it doesn’t matter because it’s a bit

of an absurd proposition despite being a statement, idiosyncratic in its

inequivalence.