with Caitin Hepse and Ida Lawrence

The duo show “A Bird in the Grass is Worth a Thousand Hearts” sees Retramp re-vamped into a laboratory of play and possibility in a reunion. Caitlin Hespe and Ida Lawrence are two artists who have been working apart from each other (most recently in Budapest and Berlin, respectively), though also in close contact. Through telepathic communication (or just regular phone contact, we cannot be sure) motifs merge and collide, and thematic encounters occur. In her drawings and paintings, Caitlin Hespe pairs images in surprising combinations through a new logic and sensibility. She makes leaps and links between associations and language and plays with the page as a space of illusions. Ida Lawrence’s canvases tell stories of mishaps, (mis)understanding and (dis)connection. Set between Germany, Indonesia, and Australia — her homes at different Times — her narrative paintings reflect recent observations, delve into distant memories, and chart her attempts to make sense of the world. The title of the exhibition A Bird in the Grass is Worth a Thousand Hearts is a conflation of (at least) four English language proverbs, each representing a sentiment or lesson for a specific moment. One values that which is close in the present, another that absence can grow desire, one says things in the distance are seen with a skewed perspective, another that images and words can not really equate. Holding each of these ‘wisdoms’ could be confusing, maybe nonsensical, or perhaps the confused proverb is a wisdom in itself? In the same way, this exhibition developed in situ connects threads of the artist's thoughts, anecdotes, messages and mark-making sensibility into a new conversation within the gallery space.