Mathew Paul Jinks
On Sundrun
December 8, 2009 – January 16, 2010
Reception: Wednesday, December 9, 5-8 pm

On Sundrun explores postcolonial identity as formed by rituals and memories. The exhibition, including performance, sculpture, and sound installation, centers on the title work, a feature-length video documenting the actions and dialogue between Jinks, an expatriate Englishman, and five performers of Indian and Pakistani heritage as they undertake to spontaneously invent a sporting game one day in a Chicago park. Dressed in costumes provided by Jinks, the individuals devise a chaotic game somewhere between cricket and capture the flag. Over the course of the work, between bouts of game play, rules and objectives are rewritten, and the players, in getting to know each other, discuss traditions, histories and their current lives and locations.

Emphasizing tactility over linear narrative or direct history, Jinks’ artworks approach the topics of power, control, and inheritance through a re-working of the definitions of game and sport. As Jinks himself states, “Reservation and repression are traits of the English: they acknowledge the history of their country but do not readily address it.” In the discussions among the performers in the film, this repression of history is likewise acknowledged as a presence in the immigrant experiences of the Indian and Pakistani participants. Whether a result of personal histories or a reflection of a quintessentially postcolonial tradition, the effects of transposition and assimilation are amplified in the use of sound and atmosphere throughout the works.

Mathew Paul Jinks completed his undergraduate studies at The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, U.K, in 2005. He completed his MFA as a University Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2008. Mathew has exhibited both in the U.K and the U.S., most recently at the Green Lantern Gallery and the Hyde Park Art Center, both in Chicago.

Related Events:

Artist Talk: Saturday, December 12, 2:00 pm

Film and Video Screening, curated by Ben Russell, UIC faculty: Wednesday, January 13, 7:00 pm