'Gutz' by ASMA and Sophronia Cook at Et al., San Francisco

Guts, from the proto-german root gheu “to pour ” becomes a point of intersection between two practices which focuses on a poetic material process of infusion, transmuting multiple elements into container objects. These experimental and intuitive constructions hint towards a visceral sensation of bodily insides and at the same time seek to obscure and protect a language of memories and affections.
Sophronia Cook’s temporal collapse works contain images remixed and flattened. Pieces fall and shrink into cast resin, detaching them from time and combining them within a fused object. This detachment allows multiple time frames to collapse into each other at once; becoming a viscerally trapped moment – contained and distorted by the opalescent, rigid material.
In the series 69 Asma presents experimental low-relief silicone paintings which explores a resistance to repetition through a juxtaposition of sculptural and painterly gestures. The image of two butterflies locked-together appear and disappear as a second image emerges from within. This presence hints at an invisible inner thought that permeates scenes from a collective memory. Accompanying the painting series are two smaller works made on syringe boxes, linked through a sense of partial containment, with an encoded drawing mimicking an ancient script or a teenager’s drawing.