Joel Wyllie’s drawings are characterised by networks of lines and marks that teem, swarm and coalesce into volatile, anthropomorphic forms. The myriad gestures he builds across the surface seem to grow organically from the paper itself, evoking the intricate geometry of the natural world, from the shimmer of fish scales to the layered textures of feathers. Playing with illusion and perception, Wyllie’s drawings operate simultaneously as psychological stage sets shaped by lived experience and as portals into an unfamiliar and unknowable realm. As Nancy Allen noted in her recent review of the exhibition, “Clouds of obsessive marks swarm in a haze, coalescing at points to create defined imagery, but otherwise generating a fog. These otherworldly pictures gradually dissolve at the edges, creating a porous boundary between their universe and our own world.”

Etched Cell, Wyllie’s first exhibition at CORPUS brings together six new works on paper alongside a commissioned text by Colm Guo-Lin Peare.