The Main Part [Is Gone]
Works by Sylee Gore
2nd to 15th April, Jeannie Avent Gallery, 14 North Cross Road, London SE22 9EU
As It Happens, 2025
Cyanotype solution, debris, ephemera, graphite, ink, organic materials, mirrorboard, oil pastel, water-based paint, printed pages, paper, original colour photographs
4500cm × 3200cm in total
This installation of cyanotype, collage, and sculpture is in conversation with the sestina, a poetic form using intricate patterns of repetition. Arranged in six columns of six elements plus a three-part coda, or envoi, the work experiments with a silence where gaps and material carry equal weight. The cyanotypes make use of Sylee Gore’s own collages and photographs, the first edition of John Dryden’s “Preface to Ovid’s Epistles” (1680), archival photographs by William Talbot, and other sources.
Library Residual, 2024/25
Cassette tape, headphones, portable cassette player, 15 minutes
Edition: unique
A sound piece of responses to Sylee Gore’s Library Ritual, a participatory score investigating light in libraries.
Contributions from Sarah Blair, Sarah Bodman, Susie Campbell, Laura Davis, Bev Frydman, Paula Muhr, Koko Maharjan Ogawaji, Max Parnell, Linda Parr, Jane Partner, Bill Prosser, Jules Sprake, Martin Wakefield, and Dominic White.
Sound editing and cassette production: Max Parnell
Octavo of Oval Leaves (Indicative Moss), 2024
Bronze, 12 × 33 × 2cm (7 parts), 5.2kg
An interactive sculpture inviting visitors to play with different verbal duos. The unfinished bronze surface holds memories of their touch as a patina emerges over time.
Artist Books
Sylee Gore 2020–24 (Steel Incisors, forthcoming 2026).
Intimate Infinity and Wir Wissen um die Nacht (Sampson Low, forthcoming 2025).
Light Hungry (Moormaid Press, 2024). With Laura Davis and Jules Sprake.
Proceedings of the Remediators (London: Sampson Low, 2024). With Sarah Messerschmidt, Jane Partner, and Simon Tyrrell.
“Review: Proceedings of the Remediators”, Michael Hampton, Art Monthly (June 2024)
Sleep Mirrors (2023). Launched at Green Door Gallery, Brussels.
Even Still (London: Sampson Low, 2021). Launched in Richmond Park, London; and at Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin.
Film Poems
“On Photopoetry”, Bat City Review 19 (2023).
“The Conveyances”, Multiple Exposures (Sheffield: Longbarrow Press, 2022).
“Let’s Not But Say We Did”, Writers’ Kingston Online (2021).
“We Take Silence Walking, It Lags Behind”, Writers’ Kingston Online (2021).
“Together—Now”, with Nora Nadjarian, Writers’ Kingston Online (2021).
Exhibited and Performed Works
the main part [is gone], Jeannie Avent Gallery, London, hosted by Nic Stringer, April 2 to 15, 2025.
Light Hungry, Green Door Gallery, Brussels, collaborative group exhibition with Laura Davis and Jules Sprake, November 22 to December 7, 2024.
OPEN @ The Old Fire Station, The Old Fire Station, Oxford, June 5 to July 28, 2024.
“Das Wetter: Ein Trauerakt” (55:54 - 1:00:16), “Die Migration: Ein Wetterspiel” (1:00:17 - 1:03:16), and “Zeitweiliges Wetter: Eine Ästhetik des Himmels” (1:03:17 - 1:07:10), im Regen—Austausch #3, Cashmere Radio, Berlin (April 2024).
“Library Poetics (I-XXV)”, “Cloud Archive Distillate”, “Ars Poetica #CA-2401”, “Library Ritual Card”, and “Classificatory Systems for Light in Libraries”, The Expanded Librarian Exhibition at CRAASH, February 19 to March 15, 2024.
TEXTUS: In-between Text and Textile, Torriano Meeting House, London, July 9 to September 3, 2023.
Four-Channel Memory, risograph, World Book Night, Bower Ashton Library, University of West England, Bristol, April 21 to September 30, 2023.
Can You Be More Specific? (with Kathleen Quaintance), exhibited in Basel, Switzerland; Seoul, South Korea; Cambridge, MA; and Ullapool, Scotland, 2021/22.
Archival Post, with Kathleen Quaintance, 2021/22 (funded by Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities).
Poetry Playcards: Library/Garden/Museum/Chapel (2021).
Library Performance Script, performed by Susie Campbell at Willesden Gallery and by Martin Wakefield in the City of London, both 2021.
Impossible Bouquet: Berlin 2021, The Herbarium, World Book Night, Bower Ashton Library, University of West England, Bristol, April 23 to May 23, 2021.
Deauville, Postcards for Perec, Bower Ashton Library, University of West England, Bristol, Summer 2021.
Ideas for a City, in Responsive Space, Modern Art Oxford, 2020/21.
Collections
Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, UK.
National Poetry Library, London, UK.
Performances
[awaiting update]
Pique-Nique Bibliothèque, MISS READ: Berlin Art Book Festival & Fair, September 23, 2023.
Speaker, Expanded Librarian network meeting, CRASSH at the University of Cambridge, September 15, 2023.
Art performance, “Parallel Editions”, European Poetry Festival, Performance, Hundred Years Gallery, London, May 3, 2023.
Lecturer, “Writing Postcards to the Archive”, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, March 29, 2023.
Host, Circle & Arc reading, Kellogg College, University of Oxford, March 29, 2023.
Reader, “Stille Post”, Green Door Gallery, Brussels, March 27, 2023.
Lecturer, “Beyond Ekphrasis: Writing with Photographs”, Kundiman International, March 10, 2023.
Lecturer, “Quilting: Turning Scraps into Poems”, LIT Reading Group, Oxford, February 20, 2023.
Writer talk, “The Library Refresh”, University of Bonn, January 13, 2023.
Reader, “Winter: The Intimate Season”, a.p. bookshop, Berlin, December 17, 2022.
Lecturer, LIT Poetry Group, Oxford, December 12, 2022.
Artist talk, “The Visual Avant-Garde: Experiments in Poetry”, University of Tübingen, December 8, 2022.
Reader, “A Tapestry of Homes”, Holywell Music Room, Oxford University, November 29, 2022.
Reader, “International Kundiman Creative Salon”, Kundiman, November 11, 2022.
Moderator, “Circle & Arc: A Literary Series”, Kellogg College, Oxford University, October 25, 2022.
Reader, Launch, between every bird, our bones, Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin, October 12, 2022.
Reader, Poetry at Peckham Pelican, London, September 29, 2022.
Reader, Yu and Me Books, New York, August 11, 2022.
Reader, Fusion Arts, Oxford, July 1, 2022.
Performer, European Poetry Festival, London, June 27, 2022.
Artist talk, Launch, SAND Journal, Berlin, June 23, 2022.
Invited talk, “Poetry in the Garden”, University of Munster, June 3, 2022.
Reader, New Work from Writers of Color, Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin, April 17, 2022.
Lecturer, “Abstracted Light”, Oxford MSt Creative Writing, March 25, 2022.
Performer and reader, Luach, Even Still, Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin, September 23, 2021.
Speaker and presenter, “The Poet in the Archive”, Kellogg College Graduate Research Symposium, Oxford, May 29, 2021.
Invited speaker, “Art and Nature”, Oxford University Poetry Society, May 2021.
Reader, “Celebrating the Poets of Forms and Features”, Poetry Foundation, Chicago, IL, October 2020 and April 2021.
Memberships
Research group, The Expanded Librarian, CRASSH, Cambridge University, since June 2023.
International Council of Museums
National Book Critics Circle (USA)
Society of Authors (UK)
VG Wort Authors Association (Germany)
Education
MSt (Distinction), Oxford University, Creative Writing
BA (Departmental Honors), Stanford University, English Literature & History and Philosophy of Science
For Sylee Gore’s work as a translator and editor, please see Only Today.