NOT JUST COLLECTIVE Presents
C
la
est d n
An exhibition at Williamson Tunnels Heritage Centre
17th-27th October 2013
e n i
Andy Johnson
@Andyoutnabout
Our Dads Year, 2013 Slate & Slate Pencil.
Johnson is a retired/redundant librarian looking for interesting things to do. This is his second piece of art after being inspired by being with artists during the Liverpool Biennial 2012 Contemporary Art Festival. His dad was latterly a big influence on him and this is a tribute to him. People are encouraged to write one word about their dad, granddad or father figure on the slate so a collective sense of who our male influences are is gathered. The slate was used by Johnson’s dad when running his business, he would write his cash sales on it and it is believed by him that his dad learned to write on it when he was a boy. Slates would have been widely used to write on when the tunnels were built.
Barbara Harrison
www.barbaraharrison.net
Labour, 2013 CGI images
I am a new media visual artist producing 2 dimensional still images. My work is almost entirely abstract. I currently work entirely with digital imaging using Photoshop, and explore each image under intense magnification. I feel I ‘discover’ phenomena within the composition of the image and the algorithms of editing tools. Formal aesthetics and the lyrical power of colour are of prime importance to me; I’m also drawn by the emotions and memories the abstract form may evoke.
Barrett & Cribley www.barrettandcribley.com
Becky Peach
@peachcreation peachcreations.art@gmail.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/peachcreations
Still Life (with Skull) II, 2013 Steel, Perspex, borax, bone
Northwest Artist and Printmaker Becky Peach predominantly explores today’s consumer behavior, raising awareness of over consumption and the destruction of our urban environments as a result of a perceived western society mentality that favors aesthetics over substance. Barrett & Cribley use sculptural techniques to reveal a narrative based on the marks etched into the surface of each item, drawing attention the subjective nature of the viewer’s interpretation of each object. Barrett + Cribley’s manipulation of their work involves subjecting each piece to a series of idiosyncratic sculptural procedures. Still Life with (with Skull) II is the result of an exploration of properties through chemical alteration; vulnerable to ambient changes and entropy, to rust and dissolution. The viewer encounters the work in the role of archivist, navigating different methods of compartmentalisation: catalogue, specimen, and myth.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind, 2013 Polaroids
Out of Sight, Out of Mind is part of an ongoing project investigating small acts of defiance and laziness within Britain’s throwaway culture. The work explores the places where rubbish is hidden from the average passersby.
Catherine Harrison
Gosia Smolenska
www.catherineharrison.co.uk catherinej.harr@gmail.com
www.gosiasmolenska.webs.com gosia.smolenska@yahoo.co.uk
BLACK MASS 2013 Found Objects and Mixed Media
Set in Stone, 2013 Oil on wood panel
SIMULACRUM 2012
Breaking Through, 2013 Oil on wood panel
Found Objects and Mixed Media
Haunting, 2013 Oil on wood panel
This piece touches on various religious themes as well as universal symbols and physiological theories. There are so many people who follow religion blindly, use it as a means for their own benefit or reject it entirely. It is not hard to forget how religion in the past, and even currently is being used as a tool for power and how many religious leaders condemn those who reject it. My work expresses this in specific reference to the Catholic Church. The work also references the constant reminders of signs and symbols and how through the influence of religion and media hold so many different meanings. By focusing on the circle I came across it as a symbol for the self. Whether the symbol of the circle appears in religion, national flags, road signs, architecture and even old cave drawings it always points to one main aspect, ultimate wholeness.
We often forget to lose ourselves in our imagination, the way we used to do in our childhood. This works tries to evoke those ideas and bring to life the dark world of fantastical characters often appearing in the dreams and nightmares of the artist. As the process of painting begins so does the journey into a world of imagination in which the characters forever entrapped in the cold stone prison try to break their way into reality. The shadowy and apocalyptic atmosphere of the work is a reflection of two main sources of inspiration the music of Goran Bregovic and paintings of Zdzislaw Beksinski.
Graham Rimmer
India Cawley-Gelling
grahamrimmer@supanet.com
The Trinity, 2012 Mixed Media Untitled, 2011 Found Object, Stones, Yarn
Cancer. It lurks unknown and unnoticed. It emerges. Do you fight‌ or flight?
Disconcerting yet ludicrous these works highlight how interaction with objects is at once a ritualistic and liminal activity. Therefore revealing our need to fetishize and concretise our desire upon the physical and tangible.
FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT – And Daddy goes Back to Ireland, 2013 Ink on Cartridge paper
Nicola Roscoe-Calvert
Thomas Ross
http://spellsagainstcivilisation.blogspot.co.uk/ Wilweorthunga, 2013 Fabric, mixed media
A response to the theory that the tunnels were built as a job creation scheme. The area is dressed like a ‘clootie well’ (a well or spring where the water is said to be healing or holy), with 1,295 strips of fabric. The figure refers to the number of people claiming out of work benefits in Liverpool’s Central Ward, the idea being that the waters of the Williamson Tunnels will ‘heal’ the current unemployment problem as the building of the tunnels did many years ago.
Ill Eye, Ill Tongue, 2013 Mixed Media
“Penigent, Pendle Hill, and Ingleborough, Three such hills be not in all England thorough.” I long to climb up Pendle: Pendle stands Round cop, surveying all the wild moor lands, And Malkin’s Tower, a little cottage, where Report makes caitiff witches meet, to swear Their homage to the devil, and contrive The deaths of men and beasts.
An impression of deep swelling between jagged rocks and rolling waves, where light interprets movement and the colours express the waters depth and speed. Progress beneath the surface shows destruction and decay with jaded results. The pearlescent medium adds a simple, yet effective way to represent shimmers and beauty found undersea. Natural Formations and rare visual effects go hand in hand. Beauty developed from tough scenarios are desirable examples of attractive subjects, such as minerals found underground including mostly diamonds to obsidian and pearls and pearlescent shells on the nautiluses mollusc. Most always begin rough around the edges, if not hidden from light.
Crashing Under Waves, 2012 Acrylic, pearlescent pigment, sand medium.
Wendy Williams www.wendycwilliams.co.uk http://wendycwilliamsdotorg.wordpress.com/ @wendy8williams
With special thanks to: Barbara Price and everyone at the Williamson Tunnels Heritage Centre.
Trailers, 2013 Mixed Media
Using recycled materials in my work, I use transport as a reoccurring theme. Initially without even realising it, it started echoing my daily life, commuting to work or travelling for other reasons. Trailers is an installation made from materials that have been used before. The paper houses were once magazines that were formed into the small structures to make a totally different installation that I displayed last year. After that one had been shown, the houses were recycled again for this work. Some of the trucks in this installation were found, buried deep in the earth after being discarded by their previous owners. I liked the idea that williamson also built houses in the area and it made me think about how the bricks were made and then transported around the city. The installation is about those houses.
http://www.williamsontunnels.co.uk/ www.facebook.com/NotJustCollective