'ONSITE' by Edward Woodley, a solo exhibition of new works in painting, assemblage, and installation.
All works are based on discarded hand-painted promotional signage originally created hastily for temporary messages. These timber signs, painted in chalkboard black with repetitive neon messaging in day-glo fluorescent paints, have been cut into geometric planes and reassembled into harmonious compositions that disrupt legibility. This process becomes the framework for Woodley to paint abstracted lettering and distorted symbols in high-gloss enamel.
The colours are high contrast, and the shapes are familiar, resulting in a unified composition. The viewer reimagines each work to decipher its content, moving through mismatched but materially and chromatically paired elements.
The signs had long since expired before the artist salvaged them. Painted fast, repainted weekly, then stopped. Beneath the cut geometry and fresh enamel, older marks are still visible. A ghost of a price written by someone, glanced at by someone else. ONSITE preserves that faded exchange, not by leaving it intact, but by cutting and fixing it into something permanent.
Edward Woodley salvages discarded hand-painted promotional signs, timber boards in chalkboard black with day-glo neon messages, originally painted fast for temporary roadside notices, and cuts them into geometric planes. He reassembles these fragments into balanced compositions, overpainting distorted lettering and symbols in high-gloss enamel so the original text becomes deliberately unreadable. Beneath the fresh paint and cut geometry, older ghost marks remain visible: a faded price or quick notation, written by someone and glanced at by someone else.
ONSITE preserves that expired exchange not by leaving it intact, but by cutting and fixing the worn signs into something permanent, trapping a faint human trace inside the abstracted surface.