Completion In Motion:
The Showcase

Safehouse 2, 137 Copeland Rd, Peckham, London SE15 3SN
20th and 21st of July

“Telos” is the ancient Greek term for fulfillment, for reaching an end. In the art world, we view and absorb the work once it has achieved its Telos. But when does the art or artist reach that? At what part of the journey does fulfillment occur? Completion in Motion: The Showcase is an exhibition about the process of making- portraying the artwork’s journey to its finale while raising questions on the trials of creation. 

This exhibition is a collaborative effort, curated by Agelos Kotzias and produced by ROOD Collective, marking the beginning of a series of events that will unfold in the upcoming and following year. “Completion in Motion” is an ongoing dialectical project on the development, research, studies, discoveries, mistakes, reiterations, and many versions of the ‘final’ product of art. Manifesting these conversations through an array of theory and practice-centered events. 

The aim is to foster an environment where the creative process is as celebrated as the completed piece. Examining the connection of each artist's process and effort and how it is realized into a full body of work for audiences to see. The viewer will find works that are not ‘completed’ but instead pieces that illustrate landmark moments for each artist’s methodologies and practices. The exhibition showcases a plethora of techniques, practices, and aims to find the value of process in itself as a common denominator within all of the artworks.

This launch event intends to encourage dialogue and companionship in an artistic community that ROOD is eager to grow. Influenced by historical art groups, the desire is to build a community that along with the collective will develop unique joint intellectual and stylized practices. Viewers are encouraged to witness, reflect, and participate in the dialogue that forms between the artists and their work. Through this interaction, ROOD and Agelos hope to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation for the intricate journey of creation.

Performance Artists: 
  • Chang Meng (Visual) & Shangyang Yu (Sound)


Exhibiting Artists:
  • Andreas Wilkinson
  • Augustine Kotzia
  • Burni Gray
  • DING LING
  • James Lang
  • Max Adams
  • Nikita Andrejev
  • Raya Kassisieh
  • Agelos Kotzias


Artist Statements


  • Andreas Wilkinson (@andreaswilkinson)

    Andreas Wilkinson is a painter and mixed media artist based in the UK. Whilst having been highly influenced by paint and its textural properties as well as modernist painters and critics. Andreas has recently started exploring the importance and relevance of the canvas, its surface, and modernist ideas and concepts within contemporary painting.

    Stretcher 120cm x 120cm
    Plaster, RTV silicone rubber, wax & wood. 
    Variable


  • Augustine Kotzia (@avgouuuuu)

    Avgoustina Kotzia is a filmmaker born in Athens. Curiosity for human nature, inclined her to pursue visual storytelling, as a medium to explore the identity of action and reaction. During her MA in filmmaking at KSA, she leaned towards fictional films as a means of a creative outlet. Nonetheless, through Documentary she found cinematic freedom. She aimed deeper into the interaction between the primary subject, their environmental context, and the visual portrayal of this dynamic. Her documentary’s visuals have a sharp and unclean look, prioritising the genuine portrayal of the subject matter.


  • Burni Gray (@burnigray)

    Burni Gray is currently pursuing an MFA in Arts and Humanities at the Royal College of Art. As a multimedia artist, Her creations primarily encompass video, installations, painting, and performance art. Her works are deeply rooted in temporality and the arbitrariness of time measurement. Her creative process often revolves around investigating and questioning universally accepted notions of space, time, science, and philosophy. She explores the frequently overlooked relationships between the self and others within contemporary collective life, unraveling the multilayered meanings of concepts such as life, memory, and identity.

    Mind the Gap 2023 Installation Urban architecture divides human activities into discontinuous and dynamic behaviours, creating a natural phenomenon of spatial and temporal discontinuity that technology easily replicates. Human activities in external spaces of the past are now repeatedly reflected in internal spaces, creating a sense of familiarity despite differences in time and space. The combination of outdated video recordings and real-time filming, emerging technologies, and old containers, capturing from the inside out and peering from the outside in, all seem to have a purpose. Silent emotions are born from the delay of all things.


  • Chang Meng (@littlesnowmeimei) & Shangyang Yu (@shyang.yuuuu)

    Chang Meng is a transdisciplinary artist adept at navigating the fields of AIGC art, experiential art, and multi-material installations. With a background in musicology, experience design, and arts humanities, her work transcends disciplinary and sensory boundaries. She inhabits a position close to ecofeminism, examining the exploitation of nature by humans and the dominant power dynamics within society. Chang uses experiential art practices as a medium for long-term research and applying her theories to create a more inclusive and caring future.

    Shangyang Yu is a media and sound artist from China, currently based in London. With a background in fine art and Information Experience Design. His works mainly focus on video installation, experimental film, sound installation, and live performance art. His creation comes from the observation of the contemporary local Internet environment. Through his works, he tries to explore the intervention of current media in individual life and the individual identity in the virtual space and the real world at the information-ages.

    CoEvolve is an experimental audiovisual performance based on AI-generated imagery and sound. In this performance, Shangyang and I will intertwine chaotic soundscapes composed of granular synthesis and fragmented concrete sound sampling. Through the interweaving of a series of AI-generated microscopic material scenes and these complex soundscapes, we aim to explore the intricate, interwoven, and symbiotic relationships between humans and artificial intelligence in the future.


  • DING LING (@blaneymoon)

    DING LING (丁澪) is an artist, experimental filmmaker and curator currently based in London and Shanghai. Using poetic image, performance, writing, installation, and experimental theatre as the main medium of expression, Ding metaphorically transforms the elements of nature into the experience of life, re-examining the dialectical relationship between life and death, and incorporating the emotional projections of consciousness, breakthroughs, elapse, and trembling into the unconventional narratives and a combination of art, philosophy, and literature. Ding's creations come from her observations and reflections in life, rooted in life experiences and cultural backgrounds. Going inwards is an inner exploration and self-observation; going outwards, after reaching the void, we still have the wide power to question life.

    Ruins Series:
    Ruins I: Distant Things Will No Longer be Revived
    Ruins II: This Place is a Shelter, This Place was a Shelter
    Mixed-media Installation and Video
    Infinite/10’00’’


  • James Lang (@jimbo__paints)

    James Lang is a British Artist currently living and working in London, having returned from Beijing in June 2022, after almost 5 years in China. He graduated from Liverpool School of Art in 2011 and Camberwell College of Art in 2014 with an MA in Visual Arts. Living in China was a transformative experience for the artist. The geographical distance made him feel closer to the culture that he left behind. This led to an interest in exploring the origins of Western culture, culminating in a deep interest in medieval art which forms the basis of his inspiration.

    Knight
    Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
    134 x 101 cm


  • Max Adams (@maxladams, maxladams.com)

    Max Adams is a practising artist from the American Midwest. He spent his formative years between Detroit and the Chicago metropolitan areas where he studied arts and crafts.

    His fine art practice is informed by these same craft sensibilities. A career in production pottery has emphasised a concern for volume and form, the mark of the hand, precision, consistency, and a rigorous attention to detail.

    Systems, patterns, and typologies underpin his creative investigations, especially mechanics of motion and time. His compositions are reiterative; his compositions are sequential. Rather than simply delineating the figure in motion, Max is drawn toward broader social choreographies—the body politic in motion. He explores both figurative and abstract idioms alike.

    Out of Round: Gravemarker (Alex Matisse)
    Steel Wire
    30.5 x 19 x 5 cm
    2024

    Out of Round: Two Strap Jug (Matt Jones)
    Steel Wire
    35.5 x 26 x 6 cm
    2024

    Las Fuentes: Clover
    Graphite
    35.5 x 43.5 cm

    Las Fuentes: Clover
    Graphite
    35.5 x 43.5 cm


  • Nikita Andrejev (@nikitaandrejev)

    The core of Nikita’s practice is based on the exploration of the materiality of paint, and the expressive potential of mark-making. He explores these values by drawing inspiration from the natural world and capturing the organic forms; from stones and trees to weather and animal anatomy. In its roots, his practice reveals his deep fascination with this world. When making his work, he questions ‘What is natural?’ by exploring elements such as geological and plant formations, as well as human and animal bodies. Once the subject is identified, it is deconstructed into absolute forms. These shapes are created by merging different bodies together that exist within the natural world, later incorporating independent visual elements developed during his practice. Eventually, he uses these forms to construct narratives on various non-visual concepts in the natural world, particularly human and animal emotions and the cycles of natural energies such as weather, life, and death. 

    Through portraying these subjects and forms, he emphasizes the ethereal chemistry inherent in the magic of painting. He aims to stimulate animalistic emotions within himself and those who experience his art. To strive towards the creation of a world that reflects our natural world, helping us experience it on an emotional level.

    Universal Nation
    Oil paint on canvas
    196 x 89.5 cm
    2023-2024




  • Agelos Kotzias (@ajelo___)

    Agelos Kotzias, born in Athens, Greece, is a polymath artist heavily influenced by his cultural and artistic background. The content in his work derives from memories, mythology, literature, everyday experiences, and the attempt to simplify, capture, and express human nature and its emotional urges through personal experience. During his BA at UCA Farnham, Kotzias’s artistic practice evolved, consisting of a large assemblage of paintings and installations influenced by his background. He further expanded his theoretical and creative skills and explored film collaborations, which broadened his perspective on audience perception through set design.

    Coming to RCA for the MFA arts and humanities program in London, Kotzias faced challenges in maintaining his artistic vocabulary due to constant movement. Limited space and logistical complexities, as well as the introduction to technological tools and means, forced him to incorporate new methodologies.

    As a result, exposure to these conditions prompted questions such as: How to create large works that can be transported in a suitcase? How to suggest expansive projects? Can room-covering paintings fit in a pocket or USB? Can a canvas be disassembled and reassembled using ancient and modern techniques?

    Kotzias navigates technical obstacles while adapting to contemporary societal needs as an artist.

    Untitled
    Acrylic on stitched canvas
    120x120 cm