ISABEL ROCK
Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold
A bold new exhibition by Isabel Rock, portraying a surreal post-human future shaped by the forces of climate collapse
Through large-scale, colourful drawings, printmaking, sculpture, and short stories, artist and climate activist Isabel Rock imagines a new world order populated by mutant hybrid species – giant slugs, feral rats, colossal pigs, and multi-limbed crocodiles – who have inherited the ruins of human civilisation.
Visitors will be invited to step into Isabel’s world. Pushing the boundaries of what constitutes ‘drawing’, the gallery will be transformed into a series of theatrical spaces that will explore the fantastical lives of these tough, dystopian creatures.
In one, a life-sized papier-mâché rat sits in a rusting sports car, while in another a giant slug is ensconced in a replica prison cell. Are the new mutant creatures doomed to repeat the same mistakes as human civilisation?
Isabel’s recent experience in prison, after participating in Just Stop Oil protests, informs key aspects of the exhibition. During a month-long stay at HMP Bronzefield, Rock used drawing as a vital outlet, sketching her surroundings with salvaged materials, including opened-out envelopes and precious biros. This act of creative defiance underpins the exhibition’s recurring themes of survival, adaptation and connection.
Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold is the outcome of the £10,000 Evelyn Williams Drawing Award 2023, which is delivered in collaboration between Drawing Projects UK, the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, and Hastings Contemporary.
Image: Isabel Rock, End of Everything, 2024, 250 x 150cm, woodblock collage, acrylic ink, acrylic paint. © Isabel Rock. Photography Paul Plews
