CAROLYN THOMPSON
23 October – 20 November 2026
at Vessel Gallery, York St John University
It’s not me, it’s you brings together several text works by Carolyn Thompson that explore the manipulation of the novel, both in content and material.
Using literary fiction Thompson read during specific time scales, the exhibition explores the push and pull of the book in a world where conversation has become clipped and textual. An onslaught of sentences, retyped from novels read during the Covid pandemic, and all beginning with the word ‘you’, grow from the crevices of the gallery space, spreading like gossip across the walls. En masse and out of context, these words appear as affirmations, accusations or insults. A framed work made from phrases beginning with the word ‘I ’, cut directly from books read fifteen years earlier, completes the conversation, presenting a more restrained, inner-dialogue of ham-fisted attempts at self-revelation and blurted snapshots of confession. Together the works are humorous in places, yet sinister in others.
Thompson’s work is concerned with language, process and fragmentation. Employing literary fiction as a source, she uses the pre-existing text and the fabric of the book itself as media, dismantling both to rebuild new narratives while investigating the interconnectivity between words, place, and time, and playing with durational activities such as reading and writing as both process and performance.
Many thanks to Sally Taylor, Nathan Walker, Joseph Hughes, Simon Morris, Steven Thompson, and the staff and students at York St John University without whom this exhibition would not have been possible.
Vessel Gallery
Phoenix Court, York St John University, Lord Mayors Walk, York YO31 7QT
Open Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm
