Joss McKinley: The Moonlight Rooms

7th February – 22nd March 2008

EXHIBIT is proud to present artist Joss Mckinley’s debut solo installation as the eleventh Empty Space Projects, which is filled with images and objects of decay, mystery and darkness.

The main body of work featured in this exhibition is the series ‘The Moonlight Rooms’, 2005. These photographs were taken in the nocturnal rooms of a zoo. No animals are present in these images. Instead, the viewer is presented with dark spaces filled with glimpses of atmospheric foliage and wood. The subject and even its scale and location are unclear. Throughout the series there is the intense sensation of a presence unseen. We are the watchers and those being watched.

Alongside these gothic-infused prints – exhibited in the basement black painted space that echoes the darkness of the nocturnal enclosure in the zoo – McKinley has also created a window installation. Seen from the street, we are presented with a progressively decaying funereal wreath emblazoned with the artist’s name.

Also on display within the ground floor gallery are McKinley’s collaborations with his father, a taxidermist, and jewellery designer Hannah Martin. Aptly named McKinley & Son, the duo have created birds modified with gold including a gold-legged song thrush, a number of gold-billed crows and a black New Zealand swan.

Francesca Gavin