To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

​

- William Blake ‘Auguries of Innocence’

 

 

‘Fragments’ unfolds as meditations on the tension between control and freedom, growth and decay, and the fragile boundaries that separate the natural and artificial. Both Li Li Ren and Jack Laver’s practices dwell in liminal spaces where materials and forms resist containment. Their works witness the entanglement of human and non-human agencies that shape our collective subconscious.

 

Both artists challenge the rigid geometries we inherit — the idea that the world is made up of fixed, separate parts. Laver’s fluid forms resist the notion that matter is static or lifeless, instead revealing a world where everything is intertwined, where form and meaning coalesce and interplay. Like the ebb and flow of unseen forces, his inks spread and mingle, forming networks of shape and meaning that emerge and dissolve.

 

Ren’s speculative landscapes open portals to alternate realities where boundaries between human and non-human, real and imagined, unfold into one another. Glass pretends to be jelly, hardness softens, and the line between the organic and synthetic is blurred beyond recognition. Together, their works dissolve the edges of perception, a reminder of the shifting of the cosmos, always becoming.

 

As we navigate these shifting landscapes, we are reminded that perception itself is a transformative act — one that alters the boundaries of the known world. Fragments is an invitation to play with the limits of control, to embrace the fluidity of existence, and to recognise that the natural and the artificial, like the conscious and the unconscious, are inextricably connected in the ever-unfolding.