Nicky Hirst: The Electorate
13.05.22 – 01.10.22
(image: Nicky Hirst 'The Electorate', 'Chadwick Road' metal and photographs 270×7cm, 2022 (detail) installation photography by Andy Keate; press release and list of works as a pdf)
Domo Baal is proud to present 'The Electorate', Nicky Hirst's third solo show in the gallery. The exhibition centres on uncertainty, transience and humanity. Working in a variety of materials found discarded on urban streets, her interests include layers of history, people and places. Her inspiration and source material comes from a mix of observation, conversation and language. The phrases 'lost in translation' and 'the presence of absence' permeate the exhibition.
The exhibition will also open for extended hours for London Gallery Weekend on 13, 14, 15 May 2022. In tandem with her Election Artist Commission, 'The Electorate' will be accompanied by a newsprint publication with a text by Rebecca Geldard.
In November 2019, Nicky Hirst was appointed as Parliament's official Election Artist 2019 by The Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art. During the General Election Nicky followed and observed the campaign trail, before creating a unique permanent piece of art for the Parliamentary Art Collection. The work responds to the main themes and outcome of the election, drawing from her experiences across the UK. The resulting commissioned work of art 'There Was A Time 2019–20' is now installed in the atrium of Portcullis House.
"We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us."
Jo Cox (maiden speech in the House of Commons on 17 June 2016)
Nicky is the sixth official Election Artist. Previous artists were Cornelia Parker (2017), Adam Dant (2015), Simon Roberts (2010), David Godbold (2005) and Jonathan Yeo (2001).
Images of Nicky's process have been posted on instagram at @electionartist2019 throughout and since the campaign.
[Notes for 'Half Listening':
"Didn't Socrates say 'I know that I know nothing'? No wait, apparently Socrates never wrote anything down, so we have to believe the writings of his student Plato, who said he said that. Though others at the time said Socrates only ever asserted that he believed that he knew nothing, having never claimed that he knew that he knew nothing. Later, Aristotle famously wrote, 'The more you know, the more you know you do not know.' Though isn't this quote often attributed to Einstein?"
Nicky Hirst, 2022]