Curiously Connected
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Fifteen emerging artists, present a vibrant show of contemporary work, featuring Fine Art Graduates from Chelsea and Greenwich University.
Varying considerably in their backgrounds and the media chosen for their art practices, these artists obviously share the desire to exhibit their work. Why they choose to exhibit is complicated. Art arguably does not exist unless it is exhibited and experienced by another person and it is often stated that artists whether consciously or subconsciously produce work that is self-revelationary. This exhibition is, therefore, a curiously connected group of artists wishing to connect curiously to a world.
For this particular exhibition the pieces selected reflect the intimate nature of the gallery. Through scale and subject matter the artists seek to connect on an individual level, gently inviting the activation of the viewer’s imagination and flowing from this the ability to receive their work.
For gallery information and sales enquiries, please contact Renata Mandic, The Coningsby Gallery Curator, by emailing renata@coningsbygallery.com , or phoning +44 (0)20 7636 7478
Artists’ Statements
Kelly Akers
Kelly Akers recently completed her PG Diploma at Chelsea College of Art, and has gained a place on their MA Fine Art course. Her work illustrates the beauty of ordinary moments in life captured in the form of portraits. Working from photographs, and staged arrangements of people, Kelly creates portraits of “real” people, using friends, celebrities or found images as her subjects. Kelly manipulates the photos from real life to create a new vision while still keeping the reality in her paintings. She is currently exploring the consequences of excess in popular culture and the current obsession with the idea of a perfect “ideal.” Her work has been exhibited in the ‘Round Chapel Hackney Salon’ Event this year and ‘Death Watch Beetle’ at Chelsea College of Art, London.
Alison Berry
Using the imagery of the fabric pattern of tartan this work explores the complex and interchangeable relationship between two opposing states of mind; the sublime and the ridiculous. Tartan is a textile of contradiction both visually and symbolically and mirrors this unstable relationship. As demonstrated by school uniforms, the plaid workman’s shirt through to the punk movement and the Essex adoption of the Burberry check, tartan is a cloth of contradiction. In a cyclical fashion it is worn to reinforce loyalty and belonging or used in a transgressive way undermining ties which ironically creates new allegiances. While drawing on these contradictory human associations, the paintings also exploit tartan’s visual characteristics. Using the pattern formed by warp and weft thread, connections are made with the grid and modernity, science and religion, containment or release, order or overwhelming potential. “White Tartan” and “Red, Yellow and Blue Tartan” are painted on blocks of oak reminiscent of medieval religious painting. Idealistic and intangible with inescapable connections with Abstract Expressionism these paintings are nevertheless images of humble tartan with all the human narrative that accompanies this cloth. Whether the sublime is considered ridiculous or the ridiculous considered sublime, Alison’s work invites the observer to travel between these two states of mind, to acknowledge this innately human experience and above all to embrace it.
Mary Campbell
Mary Campbell creates works in various media often sculpted in fabrics and furs, sometimes painted and drawn. Symbolic imagery found in textiles, their former function or stereotypical perceptions are shaped and re-shaped into anthropods. These forms and images examine accelerated multi-culturalism in Britain. Global cultures are observed with fascination as they continually weave and entwine with ‘Britishness’. The work proposes to question collective and individual ideologies.
Lee Coyne
My practice involves an ongoing enquiry into objects and their ability to have both a stable core meaning and be able to generate a number of thoughts, ideas and images that go beyond their initial beginnings. Central to our reading of an object is context, as where and how an object is presented or seen changes the way we respond to it. Consequently, it is by presenting objects in unusual or unexpected ways that I aim to broaden our understanding of them. Recent work has involved casting objects in tissue paper. The pieces evoke themes of memory, loss, fragility, transience and immortality.
Sarah Fraser
Fraser’s work considers the value of subjects and objects. Drawing on the distinction between ‘megalography’ and ‘rhopography’, the depiction of things great and trivial, the works suggest the importance of the human impulse to create greatness.
David Gazzard
With the increase in electronic publishing leading to the imminent demise of the printed novel, the illuminating of cheap second hand paperbacks is an attempt to close the cycle of history by referring back to the earliest precious books of the past. With Requiem, 2012, each book is purchased from a charity shop then returned to circulation, again via random charity shops, after at least one page has been illuminated. The illumination is not related to the text in any way but is a symbol of the value that books had in the past and should continue to have.
Irene Hammond
Irene’s work expresses the emotions experienced at various stages of life with our families, relationships and the stages of life we go through within the culture of Western society. Recent work focus’s on the ‘cult of youth’ and its inherent obsession with body shape, fear of ageing and the anxiety over the impending empty nest as children start to leave home. Irene uses several mediums for her work but namely glass, glycerin soap and lino cut.
Blanka Horakova
My recent work has focused on still life photography in order to break its boundaries and take a new approach to black and white film process. In the series ‘Requiem’ I alter and emphasize form and material of everyday objects which have already lost their use and therefore result in abstract sculptures. For ‘Curiously Connected’ exhibition I explore the intertwining of art and commercial photography which is nowhere more evident than in the genre of still life. I attempt to sublimate objects such as broken glass, pottery or other damaged objects by staging them as professional advertisement shots.
Rosemary Murphy
A fascination with the human psyche and the behavioural patterns which can be observed within our environment has prompted Rosemary to paint a series of images of boltholes – places to which people retreat to escape the pressures of modern living. These dwellings, dotted along the shoreline of the Kent coast present a surreal picture, each image betraying some aspect of human (and sometimes animal) behaviour familiar to us all. Territorial tendencies together with defensive mechanisms prevail. Those who frequent these retreats often appear only to succeed in recreating the surroundings from which they seek to escape.
Marie McEwen
Marie’s work is inspired by uncharacteristic materials and the potential which they possess to completely re-invent themselves. She attempts to stay as true as possible to the materials original identity and function whilst imposing a new significance. Curiously Connected is Marie’s second investigation into hanging ribbons which are attached to women’s clothing. By suspending the ribbons in resin they continue to hang in time and place and retain their original purpose but take on a new identity and purpose. This reinvention can be interpreted in many ways including the natural desire to grow and change or society’s need to classify, label and categorize.
Cheryl Papasian
Cheryl Papasian’s most recent exhibition at Chelsea College of Art caught the attention of ArtLyst. Art critic Sharon Strom describes the piece ‘A Quest for Love in the Age of Extreme Sports’ as “A sculptural installation [which] takes the theme of rock climbing, and makes the scene more ridiculous than functional. Her alluring colours of a playground hide the darker references to sex trafficking and prostitution, making it a space that isn’t very safe, and wouldn’t be very fun.” Cheryl also creates sculptures with cage like structures and lurid colours that reference the base elements in human nature which are evident in the seedy districts of cities. Cheryl will expand her work by including video and sound elements and continue to exhibit internationally.
Annette Slim
Annette’s work captures the emotional energy of the human figure and how it correlates with its surroundings. Who the subjects are is unimportant, but it enables her to impose her own emotions and feelings onto them. The use of a variety of mediums sympathetic to the subject allows for a quality that adds to the atmosphere of the subject
Christine White
The inspiration of my work stems from many sources; however it is primarily text and language based. As everything we see is subjectively reinterpreted, the use of language contained textually within my art allows the viewer to observe work on two separate levels. This is brought about by the combination of the image which is then interpreted through the text.
Sarah Wicks
I am exploring through my artwork our contemporary connection to the natural world, particularly our human attempts to possess, preserve and recreate natural beauty. Merops sp. (2011) is part of a series of photographic works that position taxidermy specimens within makeshift and implausible ‘natural’ contexts.
Alex J Wood
Alex Wood has just been awarded The Patrick and Kelly Lynch Scholarship to complete his MA at Chelsea. This scholarship awarded on the basis of his sculpture, ‘Plinth Tower’, which was exhibited in the Final Post Graduate Diploma Show at Chelsea College of Art. Alex Wood’s plinths tower above the viewer creating a sense of jeopardy and instability. The feeling of precariousness that the sculptures create is heightened by the imminent threat of collapse. Exploring the relationships of monumentality and the un-monumental, Alex combines low-fi materials which include timber, wax and ceramics juxtaposed against traditional bronze pieces. Towering buildings and architecture can appear to teeter on the brink and Alex pushes this feeling of precariousness to it’s limit with his sculptures.