Thwarted by the constraints that the dominating concept of linear time implies, average daily Western experiences and narratives of “reality” tend to be insensitive to notions of coexisting space-time dimensions. The group of alluringly ambiguous, small-format, figurative oil paintings by Rebecca Sharp in I am Place offers glimpses into the artist’s visual perambulatory negotiations of human antagonisms, boundary-less relationships between subjects, objects and their locations, as a means of contemplating multidimensional and pluritemporal coexistence.

A meditation enthusiast, Sharp also has a Masters in Buddhist Philosophy, which undoubtedly informs her artistic practice. If on the one hand Buddhist thought hails a cyclical notion of existence, on the other, Christian views hold the original key to the prevailing Western “beginning, middle, end” format of linear discourses. While the prior’s understanding of cause and consequence plays out within a systemic contemplation and valuation of presence, transience and an apprehension of basic space as limitless and unbound by phenomena, including time and space, the latter’s causal view promotes a binding sensation to limited space and time, at the cost of stimulating a forward-thinking sense of urgency towards grappling with permanence.

A plurality of cultural frameworks can feed into and shape contemporary contemplation of existence and the tensions that arise between competing narratives and beliefs. If a painting can be understood as its own universe, Sharp’s are multifarious. Permeated with hybridity and dualisms, friction and flux coexist, as do permanence and impermanence. Space is subdivided yet integrated, coherent and incoherent, indoor and outdoor, specific and generic: a space and a place. Objects appear at their own scale, independently and at the same time in relation to each other and the spaces and places they both occupy and are. Some objects hover while others rest on surfaces. Light travels its own unique paths irrespective of what it encounters, becomes or emanates from or into. These paintings are systemic universes unto themselves, but so are the individual elements that compose them. Sharp presents aspects in her paintings as if each is a self-sufficient unit at the same time as it is interconnected and co-existant with others in space, place and time. Conventional linear barriers are collapsed here proposing glimpses and routes into other understandings of existence.

How to Safely Explode (2023) sets forward the necessary tools and means to tackle the antagonistic task set in the title. This intriguing painting packs a lot in without seeming crowded and heralds a plurality of objects: a central crystal and a banana plant, a hovering heart, a body suit draping from a clothes hanger. A profiled human figure with a stick of dynamite atop its head and candles that seem to pour out of its midriff.  A branch of red-berried foliage, beaded necklaces. The ruffled edge of a colourful textile that’s reminiscent of anemones, crops in from the foreground. A dark sphere and a drizzling rod suspended in an undefined atmosphere.

Similar ethos appear in other paintings such as Just Give me a Moment, Fruit Silicone and Sitting and Talking (all 2023), in which windows, concave and convex forms of sliced fruit, shells, flowers and mouths further the artist’s visual lexicon offering gateways in and out, round and about the visible dimension. Similarly there are the geodes in Wise Ecstatic Polycule and I Love Doing this with You (both 2023) and draping protrusions in the barren periwinkle landscape of I will Voice your Secrets Elsewhere (2023). While the aforementioned paintings seem to contain the pulsing tensions of unbounded spiritual and earthly coexistence, Amanheceu na Lagoa and All is Well that Ends Well (2023) appear more ominous. Sharp’s lexicon is amounted by a series of figures and visual expressions that often arise during the artist’s meditation practice and the artwork can be said to dialogue with art historical predecessors such as Hieronymous Bosch, Giorgio di Chirico and Kay Sage, to name a few.

I am Place is an opportunity to delve into paintings that are at the same time fragmented and interconnected visual commentaries on challenging conventions and heralding paradoxes as means of expressing the ambiguities and tensions of human existence and psyche, the entrapments of culture, utopian and dystopian co-emerging scenarios and the search for routes to freedom. As fruits of the cultural climate of 21st Century Western culture, while viewing Sharp’s work it’s inevitable not to contemplate its propositions and allusions in relation to decolonial, race and gender discourses. In light of hegemonic linearity, categorization and individuality sparring with holistic, systemic and multifarious understandings of existence, its the cyclical and ongoing process of shedding the entrapment of “isms”, language and power, space and time that intrigue and offer a glimpse into contemplating ulterior ways of working though the surreality of contemporary human existence and its antagonistic tensions.