11.8. — 3.9.2023

Growth of the Night Plants consists of a sculptural installation and printed drawing-collages. The exhibition tells about the relationships between interiority, metamorphosis and the small deaths
living in them. The body of work grows from manipulated interior materials; from gestures of upholstery, cut-out and assemblage, as well as drawing and ceramic work, in which withdrawal,
hiding, covering, displaying, and expression take spatial forms. Following the logic of a private garden, laying on, or rising from the ground, the installation proposes postures, surfaces and
apertures that take shape in the twilight of the night.

The curator/writer Katia Porro writes: “The physical dimensions of consciousness are put to rest, pushing flowers from bed-replacing drawers in the night. And if nocturnality may suggest a certain obscurity, the night that is summoned here is one that evokes a fertile reverie, one that flirts with a certain psychedelia. Everything is breathing, pulsating, hiding, revealing, looking and stumbling awkwardly as accumulated objects manifest the everyday/night experience, however overwhelming it may be. The redundancy, absurdity yet importance of systems – think nervous, digestive, circadian and root – present themselves as a still image of metamorphosis. In this spatial diagram in which everything is intrinsically relational, the draw-er — the artist — and the drawer present us with a need for withdrawal — a withdrawal that is nevertheless transformative. And although the short lifespan of the night flowers cue their own demise, one isn’t to forget that death is always a possible outcome in play. In “Growth of the Night Plants,” dylan ray arnold offers an insight into how the hermetic figure’s rumination, or the depths of a drawer, are not simply destinations in pure dust, but rather generative and imaginative stopping places necessary for transformation.

dylan ray arnold is a visual artist from Helsinki who works with sculpture, installation, drawing, assemblage, printed matter and video. Their practice also includes collaboration with artist Océane Bruel. Their works have been exhibited in e.g. In Helsinki at HAM gallery (2020), Alkovi (2019), P7T art space (2022), Turku Art Hall (2020) and Titanik gallery (2022) and abroad at Tallinn ArtHall (2019), in Paris at artist-run spaces GlassBox (2019) and Pauline Perplexe (2022). Their works are in the collections of The Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki Art Museum and Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. The artist and the exhibition have been supported by Kone Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.