Empty Coats

'Blending the heraldic with the optical, August Krogan-Roley’s Empty Coats each present themselves as a pictorial game.

Littered with cues – winding roads to follow, carved out recesses to occupy, and barriers mounted to intrusive vision – they stem from the artist’s ongoing interest in the compositional mechanics of world-building. One of the strongest influences upon this body of work is the organisation of pictorial space found in medieval coats of arms. In particular, carved stone artefacts in the Raidkivimuuseum (Carved Stone Museum) in Tallinn have exerted an important influence on the development of this body of work, although any reference to such objects are indirect. Krogan-Roley’s interest lies not so much in the specific information these artefacts have been coded with, but rather in the visual frameworks created to contain such information.'