Minutes endlessly knit together, at once remarkable and yet the most quotidian act: time moving forward. The shape of a minute, a group exhibition with works by Alli Conrad, Casey Baden, Jesse Zuo and Natalia González Martín, explores the transitory and ethereal nature of fabric. Fabric briefly holds a human imprint before taking on its next shape, and the artists explore the narrative in momentary shapes, interior spaces and intimacy as well as the materiality of fabric.

Domestic items, body language, a misplaced hair, a glossy nail all contribute to the narrative in each of the works while the crux of the story unfolds within the fabric. The fabric holds an ephemeral shape left behind by the body and yet the corporal form is unmistakably present, and frozen in time within the work. A taut hem, a dangling thread, a crumpled shirt, a twisted strap come into sharp focus. They create a momentary mystery and are a snapshot of the most mundane parts of everyday routines. These intimate moments conjure make-believe and stimulate a sense of fantasy. They become portals to the unknown as well as a hazy reminder of something familiar.

In Martín’s paintings, transparent and embroidered fabric is held to the body by the hands of a woman, momentarily offering privacy. The cloth is diaphanous and sensual, blending into the body and recalling the visual language of Renaissance portraiture. In Zuo’s works, quotidian moments are frozen, poignant and true to life in her signature muted colour palette.

In Conrad’s works, sheets lie twisted on a bed seemingly still warm from the body or bodies that just laid there. Her works deal with reality and imagined realities. In turn, Baden renders intimate moments on canvases that the artist has hand-stitched and woven together. The fabric texture of the canvas becomes the fabric on a bedspread or the folds of a towel.

Moments are frozen in time and memories are stitched together. Yet the images can be uncanny, recalling the thin veil between viewer and work. The works convey bodily movement as it is stretched, twisted and hung, showing us where to look as the stories unfold.