New PhD Student Exhibition – MB O’Toole: NOTHING WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE OTHER THAN THE PLACE

Exhibition Launch Event 6pm 17th April, Persistence Works Gallery, Yorkshire Artspace, Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS

The title of SHU doctoral student MB O’Toole’s exhibition is taken from Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem Un coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard, [A throw of the Dice will never abolish Chance]. First published at the turn of the nineteenth century, Stéphane Mallarmé’s generative poem continues to influence the work of artists, writers, and thinkers.

On the surface, this is a poem about a shipwreck and the Master of the ship, who when faced with his own extinction, hesitates on the brink of the abyss, dice held in his clenched fist. The themes of being and not being, of chance and circumstance, and, of chaos and order find form – become embodied in the textual layout of the poem. The reader is presented with a constellation; a network of possibilities and meaning, spread across twelve double pages. M.B. O’Toole approaches Un coup de Dés, its unbound white pages as a painter might approach the space of the canvas, moving between painter and poet, becoming painter––poet.

O’Toole’s reading of the poem, conceived as a series of dialogues with Mallarmé, re-frame and re-articulate Un Coup de Dés. She uses a number of performative gestures to engage with the text, recalling Mallarmé’s mind at work – his hand, his eye and ear, composing in and across the pages of Un coup de Dés . This exhibition at Persistence Works Gallery presents a number of O’Toole’s dialogues and related artwork – operating across the space of painting, poetry, sculpture, video installation, and more recently mathematics.

M.B. O’Toole is an artist and researcher living and working in the UK. In 2014 she was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship from Sheffield Hallam University to undertake practice-based art research. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2016, a solo exhibition of her work titled, Variant Sail was shown at the Ex-Libris Gallery, Newcastle University. Her recent painting has been exhibited in the Marmite Prize for Painting V, 2016, shown at Block 336, London, and Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland. O’Toole has produced a number of artist books, published by MA Bibliothèque, edited by Dr Sharon Kivland, shown at The London Art Book Fair, at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2015, and The International Contemporary Book Fair, Leeds, UK, in 2015 and 2016. In 2013 O’Toole was short listed for 100 Painters of Tomorrow by Thames and Hudson, and in 2011 her work was exhibited as a finalist in the Liverpool Art Prize. Her work is held in number of collections including: Arts Council England, and various private collections. Artist’s books are held in the British Library, London, The Tate Gallery, Tate Library and Archive, London, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and CdLA, St-Yrieix-la-Perche, Paris.

Exhibition Continues

18 April – 1 May 2018
10-4 Monday-Saturday