Emotional utterances of relinquished objects provide London-based painter Michael Andrew Page the preliminary signals for enquiry across his practice. Across his works a gravity subjected, light-perforated bivvy performs as the antithesis of the Gothic vernacular, whilst maintaining cognitive recognition regarding function. A shielding congregational structure, covert, singular, deployable.

Page’s ongoing series Bivvy makes use of the eponymous single person dwelling as the starting point for each painting. Through a complex series of analogue and digital processes, the humble tent is transformed into something that resembles stained glass, more rooted in a gothic vernacular; worthy of spiritual contemplation.

Using architecture as a means to explore abstraction, Page painstakingly transcribes architectonic components typical of found bivvy structures into the architectural software programme CAD. These are then multiplied and manipulated to produce a 3D model, which forms the basis for his compositions. The initial image is transferred from CAD to canvas via the photographic method of cyanotype, after which, Page adds layers upon layers of oil paint in a slow meditative process, a monastic reverie if you will.

In his second solo exhibition at Project Native Informant, CLAUSTRUM, the title has a multitude of meanings: “a hidden place", "hidden away”, “draw near to”, “a portion of a monastery closed off to the laity”. Taken together, these definitions provide a useful way of analysing the key concerns of Page’s practice. The more one tries to decode the fractal-like geometry of Page’s compositions, the less the structures reveal themselves. Lines disintegrate, light refracts and space collapses.