John Hurrell – 15 June, 2026

If we decide to focus on the structuring importance of vowels in written language, we find these ‘written’ marks in Lindsay’s show presented as joined-together reshuffled sections of chopped up / restitched canvas strips, that present cursive script or collaged calligraphic linear drawing. Flowing looping handwriting is thus reformatted into stitched vertical and horizontal blocks, quite unlike say, any original compact typography with its severely discrete horizontal spacing.

The drawn ‘written’ lines are made of graphite and often consist of a double layer carefully positioned over thicker bands of churning slopped-on paint. Looking a bit like Twomblys that have been pushed through an egg slicer, or the manually-imposing script works of Hanne Darboven, these grids of disembodied sections of agitated (strangely thwarted) looping line are a fascinating hybrid of conceptualism and gesturalism, the latter ‘emotive frisson’ sprinkled over rearranged mutilated letter parts.

Oddly compelling, Lindsay’s unusually provocative works tease but still communicate in a directly bodily manner. Mentally intense, they (despite being so overtly ‘manual’) become a strangely shredded ‘head-trip’. In fact you might call this ‘deconstructed’ writing but that is a tad pompous. The gridded marks are too disconnected and perhaps too weedy for that, though meaning is hinted at through tubulent evocation. Patterns and repetitions suggest a processual method and absent signifieds.

John Hurrell

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