DOUBLE HEMISPHERE is a group exhibition of collage, sculpture, painting, drawing, and video by HANY ARMANIOUS, MICHAEL BELL-SMITH, RAFAL BUJNOWSKI, SIMONE GILGES, and DAVID NOONAN. The artists infuse pared-down, monochromatic and patterned approaches with a sense of the poetic and the paradoxical.

DOUBLE HEMISPHERE includes line tracings of carpet designs by HANY ARMANIOUS; a painterly geometric animation by MICHAEL BELL-SMITH; a lustrous black oil painting by RAFAL BUJNOWSKI; an installation of sculptural elements within a fabric half-cube by SIMONE GILGES; and a grainy, angular silk-screened collage by DAVID NOONAN.

A DOUBLE HEMISPHERE map displays two sides of the globe on the one chart; similarly, the works in the exhibition hold apparent opposites within themselves, including abstraction and figuration, hidden and revealed features, and both streamlined and intricate forms. These juxtapositions instill the works’ often-minimalist strategies with a drive toward metaphor and lyricism.

HANY ARMANIOUS’ tracings on paper of carpet patterns are direct and unambiguous actions upon everyday materials. They are also excavations of the ideas embedded within the original designs. Sparking travels into the imaginary, Armanious’ drawings repurpose ornamentation, revealing how conventional composition can be reworked and rethought.

In a new video from MICHAEL BELL-SMITH, shapes converge and then fragment to the accompaniment of an ambient, anthemic soundtrack. Combining repetition and variation, and flatness and depth, the work recalls the visual and musical language of TV and movie companies’ animated logos. It engenders a sense of exhilaration – as the forms come together and the music rises – that quickly dissipates as they shatter and move apart.

RAFAL BUJNOWSKI’s black oil painting Lamp Black: Pentagon (7) combines two distinct areas of luminous patterning within a sharply geometric whole. The work’s groove-like texture, its reflective sheen, and its irregular shape transcend pure abstraction: it moves toward a transitional space where associations and sensualities form and dissolve.

SIMONE GILGES’ installation places individual sculptural items – a solid black cube made from tropical wood, a fragment of a facial mask with an abstracted nose, and a child-like arm – within a deconstructed cube fashioned from fabric. The work’s disparate elements merge to create a charged symbolic system that is underscored by a powerful sense of transience and imbalance.

DAVID NOONAN’s Untitled, a silkscreen on jute with linen collage, depicts a child at play with a strange puppet. The scene is dominated by the diagonal lines of the child’s teepee playhouse. The work’s rough-hewn texture and its decolored, low-resolution imagery reduce its narrative force, while amplifying its sense of formal and emotional unease.

HANY ARMANIOUS (Ismalia, Egypt, 1962) lives and works in Sydney, Australia. He holds a BA in Visual Arts from City Art Institute, Sydney. Selected exhibitions include Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis MO (solo) (2008); City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (solo)(2007); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (solo); Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Busan Biennale (all 2006); Ocular Lab Inc., Melbourne (solo); National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (both 2005); Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand (solo)(2004); Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne (solo)(2002); and UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (solo)(2001).

MICHAEL BELL-SMITH (East Corinth, ME, 1978) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He holds a BA in Semiotics from Brown University, Providence RI. Selected exhibitions include the 2008 Liverpool Biennial; The 5th Seoul International Media Biennale; The New Museum, New York; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign IL (all 2008); Musee d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York (screening); Dallas Center for Contemporary Art (all 2007); Museum of Fine Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland (screening) (2006); and Tate Liverpool, UK (2005).

RAFAL BUJNOWSKI (Wadowice, Poland, 1974) lives and works in Krakow, Poland. He studied in architecture at the Krakow University of Technology and graphic arts at Krakow Fine Arts Academy. He and was founder and curator of Galeria Otwarta, Krakow (1998-2001); and co-founded Ladnie artist’s group (1995-2001). He was artist-in-residence at Art in General, New York (2004); and won the international art award Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft (2005). He has exhibited at Ibid Projects, London (2008); Galerie Johnen+Schoettle, Cologne; Daniel Hug, Los Angeles (both 2007); Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (solo); National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (both 2006); Prague Biennale; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami (both 2005); Raster, Warsaw (2004).

SIMONE GILGES (Bonn, Germany, 1973) lives and works in Berlin. Gilges studied visual communication at UdK-Berlin and photography at FH Dortmund. She is a founding member of Honey-Suckle Company (HSC), Berlin; founder of publisher and project space “Neue Dokumente”, Berlin; and publisher of “freier” magazine. Exhibitions include Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; Kunstverein Hannover (both 2009); Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin (solo); pret a pARTager, Dakar, Senegal; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (HSC) (all 2008); Kunstraum Innsbruck; Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg (solo with HSC) (both 2007); Künstlerhaus Stuttgart; Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (solo with HSC) (all 2006); CRAC Alsace, France (solo); Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (both 2005); Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (solo) (2002); Kunst-Werke, Berlin (HSC) (2001); PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (HSC) (1999); 1st Berlin Biennial (HSC) (1998).

DAVID NOONAN (Ballarat, Australia, 1969) lives and works in London. He holds a BFA from Ballarat University College and an MFA from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Selected exhibitions include Tate Triennial, London (2009); Busan Biennale; Chisenhale Gallery, London (solo) (all 2008); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (solo) (2007); Tate Modern, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (both 2006); Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (solo); Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne; Mori Art Museum, Japan (all 2005); Tate Britain, London (2003); PS1, New York (2002); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2002); 7th Istanbul Biennale (2001); The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2000); and the Witte de With, Rotterdam (1999).