Systems on Paper

Opening reception | Thursday 11 September, 6 – 8pm

Farley Aguilar | Roberta Booth | Mirtha Dermisache | Marcin Dudek | Sorel Etrog | Lonnie Holley | 

Marcus Jefferson | Dale Lewis | Victoria Lomasko | Yoshinori Niwa | Jenkin van Zyl 

Edel Assanti is pleased to present Systems on Paper, a group exhibition exploring the tangible and invisible structures that shape bodies, behaviour, identity, and community. Primarily comprising intimate works on paper, the diverse works probe the technological structures, political systems and social realities that permeate everyday life, envisaging how they might be transformed, transgressed or altogether reimagined.

Through abstraction, repetition, and symbolism, the exhibition explores how control is imposed – and how individuals respond, endure, or resist both the literal and metaphorical structures that confine and define us. Language emerges as a site of tension: at times emptied of meaning to evade authority, at others, loaded with subversion. The body, meanwhile, is mechanised, ritualised, or reclaimed as a space of defiance. Across these varied approaches, the works suggest that while systems may shape identity and behaviour, they remain vulnerable to disruption and reinvention.

Systems on Paper ranges historic works from the Estates of Roberta Booth, Mirtha Dermisache and Sorel Etrog, to new works by Farley Aguilar, Marcin Dudek, Lonnie Holley, Marcus Jefferson, Dale Lewis, Victoria Lomasko, Yoshinori Niwa and Jenkin van Zyl.