Threshold artspace
Bold contemporary art by Scottish and international artists in Perth since 2005
Open Mon to Sat admission free
|
10am-5pm or late on performance evenings
artspace
LANDSCAPES
Richard Ashrown | Henna Asikainen | Theresa Pickles and Jasmin Hannah Sutherland
New Horsecross Arts’ commissions and acquisitions by four UK-based artists all challenging our perception of the landscape tradition in art
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova
22 April- 29 June 2013
FREE exhibition guide
Back in the 1850s when landscape was first in vogue, painters used to scout the far reaches of Scotland for the best view worthy of their framing. Almost two and a half centuries later contemporary artists followed in the footsteps of their Victorian counterparts traversing the country in search of their ideal kind of landscape. Their destination took them from remote Phenzhopehaugh to Perthshire – perhaps some of the most scenic of rural Scotland. Instead of heavy load of measuring, photographic and paint equipment, for which their Victorian counterparts often needed assistants, the artists carried their tools with ease – digital cameras. Their choice of landscape however was not in the name of beautification and celebration. Instead, they explored different aspects of our engagement with nature from botanical indexing to contemporary myth-making; from tape drawing in public space to playing games with our immediate environment. Their landscape imagery leans towards the tradition of constructing ‘emotional’ landscapes or ‘mindscapes’, essentially an area of the imagination and the mind’s eye. Experience all the new works fresh in the five ‘project rooms’ of the Threshold artspace. With our current exhibition we are proudly embarking on a new series of Horsecross Arts’ commissions and acquisions by four international UK-based artists. Richard Ashrowan and Henna Asikainen have worked with us in 2005 and have developed yet another set of thoughful artworks for our collection. Jasmin Hannah Sutherland and Theresa Pickles are both new to Threhsold artspace as exibiting artists with two visually-arresting works each and not without a hint of humour. Iliyana Nedkova
Wave = a long canvas of 22 flat screens in a row under the copper-clad dome showing 3 short artists’ films and videos back-to-back as a continuous multiple channel installation
Orange Ribbon (2013) Jasmin Hannah Sutherland Born in Melbourne. Lives and works in Edinburgh.
This ongoing artwork is the result of a diary of images taken between November 2011 and February 2013 in which the same object – a piece of bright orange industrial tape – was taken for a walk, choreographed and photographed in a variety of contexts and world cities, including Perth. The metaphor of the tape in this piece goes beyond art and property removals to the journeys we undertake to draw us closer to a particular place or each other. The shiny industrial ribbon is like a line connecting me to the daily process of art making and my own creativity. I have taken hundreds of images and self-curated them into sets of 22 in response to the ‘landscapy canvas’ of the Threshold Wave. I continue to play with the ribbon during my travels and marvel at the patterns, sites and opportunities emerging. Jasmin Hannah Sutherland
Icarus and Other Fallen Angels (2013) Henna Asikainen Born in Helsinki. Lives and works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
An artist’s contemporary twist on the well known Greek myth through the use of a common fashion accessory – the feather boa. Suspended in flight, Icarus is soaring through the sky, exhilarated by his own magnificence and the beauty of flight, whilst other screens show the boa falling, feathers scattered around anticipating inevitable destruction. This myth, often depicted in art, is usually presented as a tragic example of a failed ambition, while the feather boa also leads the mind to more sombre thoughts of worldwide tragedies such as oil disasters and other ecological catastrophes – of birds covered in oil, their feathers stuck together awaiting death and destruction.
Pac-Man Landmarks (2013) Theresa Pickles Born in Stirling, lives in Clackmannanshire and works in Perth.
Released in 1980, Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history. It is part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art while an artist’s contemporary take on this iconic game is now in our own. Using the Pac-Man strategy of eating his way around the game, Pickles substitutes the classic dotted maze with her detailed photographed studies of our natural and man-built environment. If the popular Pac-Man represents ‘the unquenchable search for knowledge’, Pickles’ artwork represents the unforeseen distractions that may occur in this pursuit of learning.
Threshold artspace | Horsecross Arts Perth Concert Hall | Mill Street | Perth | PH1 5HZ Perth Theatre | 185 High Street | Perth | PH1 5UW 0044 (0) 1738 621 031 | info@horsecross.co.uk | www.horsecross.co.uk/about/threshold-artspace/
|
UK