Phoebe English, NOW Gallery, May 2015.
For several seasons, young British designer Phoebe English has been labelled ‘one to watch’, an ‘up and comer’ on the path to great things. Having trained under the late, legendary Louise Wilson, the sky, it seems, is the only limit for her and her darkly feminine attire.
Now, she’s the subject of a new retrospective, or ‘introspective’, exploring her working processes. Held at NOW Gallery, entitled, “Floating, Falling, Drowning, Flying”, stays quietly true to this sense of trajectory which has stalked her so far. It’s more tentative than her supporters, though. Rather than motioning unabashed to her dazzling future, the four words leave you hanging – they’re gerunds, those grammatical incarnations of the unfinished, the incomplete. “Non-finite”, the dictionary labels them, as if offering a lean summary of English’s aesthetic.
Homing in on fine details like this usually feels redundant, or at least a little oblique. Not here, though, in the case of English’s work, and the chosen focus of this show. It was originally devised around an ambitious, painstaking beaded installation, but details – process, practice, production – got in the way. Instead, much of the exhibit is based around tables displaying bits of English’s old work – all the things she accumulated as she worked towards each season’s final show.
When English went to present the NOW curatorial team with her unseen archive the idea behind the exhibition evolved. It’s still home to the original idea, the cascading sculpture that catches the light as you enter, but now it’s just one element, one thread woven in.
Phoebe English, Now Gallery, May 2015
Each table shows visitors different collections that English has produced, but the finished result of each is almost beside the point. What’s so distinct about English’s work is her eye for the exquisite detail: the sheen of a black feather, or the way the weight of a knot makes it hang. Because of this, her work lends itself to this dissection, giving over the stage to the part, rather than the refined whole.
If the tables make up the main body of the show, then the beaded installation, falling from the gallery’s high ceiling, still provides the arresting focal point. A feat of engineering and craftsmanship –it’s made out of 60,000 glass beads – it invites careful examination, but rewards from afar too. Up close, it bristles, each glass bead emitting a sharp light; from further back it’s almost otherworldly, a ghostly translucent sail.
While it’s the sculpture that might draw you to Greenwich, it’s the work around it that makes you stay; the polaroids, the tools, the frayed swatches and samples, remnants and relics that never reach the runway. For those already captivated by English’s work, it’s a treasure trove, and for newcomers, her talent is immediate. Though the title of the show is unresolved – Floating, Falling, Drowning, Flying – it plots a decisive arc, too. It might be open-ended, but it’s going places. Whatever comes next for English, I think it’s safe to say, so is she.
NOW Gallery, The Gateway Pavilions, Peninsula square, Greenwich Peninsula, London SE10 0SQ until 9 August 2015
Text by Imogen Greenhalgh
More: Nadine Goepfert’s sculptural textiles
More: Check out our latest fashion editorials