TOIL (Solo exhibition for Project 4 Gallery, Washington DC, USA)

In her first solo exhibition in the United States, Townsley examines the role of repetition in art production through sculpture, installation, drawings, and video. The exhibit title“TOIL,” refers not only to Townsley’s workman-like dedication and painstaking process, but also serves as an acronym for Time Off In Lieu.

Mind numbingly tedious tasks like scribbling, counting, or stacking, are coupled with large accumulations of everyday materials such as, till rolls, and hairgrips. Hours and hours of repeated action transform these otherwise meaningless objects into something greater than the sum of its parts. Through this excruciating repetition, Townsley questions wider cultural concerns of time and temporality, the concept of the moment, failure, erasure and authorship.