Daniel Pettitt is included in Soft Semaphore at Seventeen, London, on view from 12 April to 18 May 2024, with a private view on Thursday 11 April from 6pm. The exhibition brings together Betsy Bradley, Ingrid Castelein, Julie Maurin, Erin O'Keefe, Richard Paul, and Daniel Pettitt.
In programming, a semaphore is a variable or abstract data type used to regulate access to shared resources, with its primary operations of 'wait' and 'signal' delineated by behaviour as perceived by those interacting with the data. The exhibition draws parallels between the interpreter and the viewer, both engaged in the task of deciphering data and extracting meaning. In its more familiar form, the semaphore is a visual cue reducing language to facilitate communication over distance, achieved through fire, lights, flags, or the body. A more subtle rendition of this concept extends back into plastic mediums, hinted at by the word's etymology, derived from the Greek for 'mark', 'sign', or 'token'.
Pettitt's contributions develop his ongoing interest in allusive and speculative abstraction. Abstract passages of gestural mark-making, hints at figuration, fragments of found imagery, and textual impositions blend into what he describes as 'provisional fields and partial images'. Elements support one another while threatening to eradicate one another, every gesture met with its counter. Marks pile up atop and alongside, making surfaces into a patchwork of zones, legible as laid out across an expanse, not unlike a map.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication by Richard Paul.
Image: Installation view, Soft Semaphore, Seventeen, London, 2024. © The Artists, Courtesy Seventeen. Photography: Damian Griffiths.
