The Source of Art is in the Life of a People Roman Ondak

Awesome Rules of Language, 2016 (on the upper halves of the walls) Textbook illustrations painted in acrylic on gallery walls, interventions by adolescents in graphite A historical guidebook (Teaching the Language, 1960s) on social conduct is updated by the enactment of contemporary teenagers, opening up a conceptual schism between prescriptive codes and traces of lived experience. Four Moon Phases, 2016 (left) Found blackboards, ladle bowls Four blackboards salvaged from Roman Ondak’s native Slovakia introduce a hint of autobiographical content into the show but equally symbolize the passing down of knowledge from one generation to the next. Event Horizon, 2016 (floor and wall on the right) Oak tree, stamped ink, acrylic paint, steel fixtures On each day of the exhibition, a pre-sawn disk is separated from the trunk of an oak tree to reveal the delineation in ink of one of its age-defining rings and a key historical event which occurred in that year. At the center of the space is the original marquetry floor panel designed for the South London Gallery by Walter Crane for the gallery’s official opening in 1891, and unveiled by Roman Ondak on the occasion of his SLG exhibition. Photo © Andy Keate