ACT I: The works begin to speak to each other, asserting their own identity. Youn’s sculptures as “FIGURES”, Birch’s paintings as “SPEECH”.

PROLOGUE
[Scene: Alice Amati gallery. Figures of Speech by Sophie Birch and Rachel Youn. 7 March - 12 April, 2025. 27 Warren Street, W1T 5NB, London]

NARRATOR:
Figures of Speech provides a framework for exploring how ‘language’, whether through vibration or pigment, can reveal more than it signals.

Birch’s paintings examine the unseen forces that shape aural and tactile perception. One of her main investigations is around sound, where elements like the ear’s cochlea (which processes vibrations) and the lateral line (an animal hearing sensor) inspire her works. Her layered paintings are made through tactile marks, using time as a medium for transformation.

While Birch’s brushstrokes simulate finger-painted surfaces, Rachel Youn’s sculptures are made from machines built to touch. Youn sources them second-hand, drawn to their functional failure: designed to replicate human fingers, they were never good enough. Youn’s kinetic sculptures use artificial orchids and real dried flower stems, both existing in a state of controlled perfection, untouched by decay in an illusion of desirable beauty. Yet, they are also subjected to relentless motion, enduring the mechanical torment their works impose. 

Both artists share an engagement in radical decontextualisation of their points of departure: one dismantles didactic anatomical imagery, the other repurposes massage machines and exercise platforms. In both cases, the reference points become unrecognisable in the final works. For Birch, the anatomical inspiration is transformed into an ambiguous landscape with a great evocative capacity. In the case of Youn, the functionality of their machines is transformed by mixing them with natural or natural-like and human elements to create kinetic sculptures. The results of both creative processes turn the decontextualisation they share into almost opposite cognitive challenges. In Birch’s case, the sensuality of the images could stimulate imaginations of atmospheric phenomena and in Youn’s, the strangeness of the combined elements in loops strains our imagination with erotic resonances and absurd humour. The spectators therefore access the experience of harmony (Birch) and dissonance (Youn) from these trajectories of decontextualisation. 

ACT I

[Scene: Alice Amati gallery. The walls hang Sophie Birch’s oil paintings. The colors and layers pulse, barely contained. Nearby, Rachel Youn’s kinetic sculptures hum and whirr.They look at each other as if they want to "speak," and then they do.]

​FIGURES:

(The orchids tap softly against the wall and then against each other)

Do you think my arms are too slow? 

Can you see how they move, looping, always under control?

This is restraint. Are you restrained, too?

SPEECH:
Restraint? I am expansion!
(The paint marks look like speech bubbles, as if about to jump out)
Do you see this?

​FIGURES:
Your movement stays stuck on your surface.
You gather light, but keep it trapped.
I pull, twist. I’m not afraid of moving. 

​SPEECH:
Do you think I’m trapped?
Each layer is time. Each one, a conversation.
Cochleas, cross-sections of ears—sound, vibration.
Can you hear what’s inside?

FIGURES:
I only hear the noise of my movements.

​SPEECH:
And movement makes you alive?
Everything spins, but you’re lost in motion.
Look at me. I’m not afraid to stay in one place.

​FIGURES:

(Moves like a possessed spirit)

Pink flowers, my body’s always blooming.
But you—You say you’re unafraid to stay still,

yet your paint betrays you! It breaks, reforms. 

​SPEECH:
I’ve got pinks in me, too.
I’ve got warmth, sunrise…

​FIGURES:
You’re like a weather system!
I was a quick fix for their bodies,
until I wasn’t. I couldn’t replace a person,
so I became something else.

SPEECH:
My hearing center’s shifting—
becoming something else, too.
My marks ripple, like the skin of an amphibious.
I am ‘exploding,’ perhaps ‘flowering’,
like you—hard to say. 

​FIGURES:
Sit pretty, they say. Smile, be pleasant.
(Hips gyrating, accelerating)
I’ve been designed to perform.

​SPEECH:
And I’ve been designed to perform
… the image of hearing.

​FIGURES:
(Tendrils reaching out, like a swamp creature)
I look harmless—soft, like moss.
But I twist, I trap. I’m a shaking monster.

​SPEECH:
Cover up! I see the lacquer tray under your skirt.
(Layers of paint become translucent)

​FIGURES:
Do you see the milky plastic nodules beneath me?
(Creeping across the wall, insect-like)
Your chrysalis is peeling, too!

​SPEECH:
There’s a flood of something!
Like the yolk of an egg spilling—
My body vibrates…sound waves, the swell of music…
Sirius! Starbells! Flames! Eyeballs! Webbing!
A sudden rush of something natural.

FIGURES:
That rush of artificial touch.
(performing the pressure of someone's fingers)
Resonance, vibration, eroticism!
Exhaustion, submission, servitude!
Simulation, exoticism, hysteria!
Objectification, obscurity, womanhood!
Tricks, traps, tradition… repetition!

SPEECH:
Allusion.
Illusion.
All of it.
Both of us.