J e s s i c a H e r r i n g t o n
Afternoon Tea: Works on Paper WW Gallery at the 54th Venice Biennale 30 May – 12 June 2011 The Quaffers Pavilion, Campo San Polo, Venice, Italy.
Contents
Foreword Debra Wilson & Chiara Williams
Cherry Smyth on Afternoon Tea
Helen Sumpter on Afternoon Tea
The Artists
Foreword Debra Wilson & Chiara Williams
WW Gallery presents its exhibition ‘Afternoon Tea: Works on Paper’ from 30 May – 12 June 2011, as part of the ‘UK at the Venice Biennale’ programme. Curators Debra Wilson & Chiara Williams love works on paper and so decided, over a cup of tea, to undertake a survey of sorts through a call for submissions. After quaffing more tea, and a Victoria sponge, they realised what a relaxing and decadent way to enjoy art this is. And so, for the briefest and cringiest of moments, ‘ART4noon Tea’ was born, and then quickly given cement shoes and tossed into the Thames, somewhere in the Docklands. Next, WW found a venue in Venice in the beautiful Campo San Polo, and christened it The Quaffers Pavilion, to act as an outpost of The British Pavilion, itself originally designed in 1887 as a tearoom. And so it is that, on the occasion of the 54th Venice Biennale, and as an antidote to the vastness of the Giardini and Arsenale spaces, WW invites visitors to unwind and partake in the great British tradition of Afternoon Tea. From 3 – 6pm daily, tea and cake is served along with a fantastic selection of contemporary works on paper by 70 emerging and established artists. The phrase ‘works on paper’, like ‘afternoon tea’, evokes a curious, slightly old school nostalgia. But even in this new media age, working on paper is relevant and still underpins the practice of most contemporary artists. The immediacy of marks on paper lends itself to the honest and direct outpouring of dreams, memories, fantasies and humour, offering an intimate exchange between artist and viewer. The works in this exhibition are free from a common theme and instead simply reflect the current spectrum of small-scale works on paper, where image and text are expressed in their most vivid and vital form. A big thank you to the British Council; the writers Cherry Smyth and Helen Sumpter; Bice Curiger, Director of the 54th Venice Biennale, for her inspiring words; and most of all, thanks to all the artists, selected and unselected for helping us to realise and materialise our art tea party. WW Gallery, London, May 2011
Afternoon Tea Cherry Smyth
With many great artists, the kernel of creative originality can often be found in works on paper. Think of Beuys, Giacometti or Bourgeois. The immediacy of gesture and the intensity of the smaller scale can deliver the artist’s essential spirit or signature in a way that is sometimes lost in large scale, more ‘finished’ work. This exhilarating selection of contemporary works on paper transmits this immediacy and intensity at once. The range of materials from floral wallpaper to an Apple Store shopping bag and the diversity of media from latex to thread, enliven and refresh the category of ‘works on paper’. Take Kate Davis who uses interwoven strips of musical scores to create exquisite visual appropriations of intricate acoustic experience. These have the buoyancy and vim of Constructivist experiments with shape and bright colour, and their synaesthesia of sound and vision is thrilling. Then there are works that behave quite differently, like Kinga Lubowiecka’s ‘Untitled’ that uses emulsion on photographic paper. This deft, delicate work relies on quietness – a soft purr of buff-coloured emulsion on a sheet of partially folded white paper which is mounted on a piece of MDF, the same tone as the paint. If Davis sounds like Shostakovich, Lubowiecka sounds like Satie. Then there’s the interventionist graffiti style from artists like Lisa Muten, who has painted a wonderfully obscuring screen of colours over a poster for a Faye Dunaway movie, making the leading man vanish and leaving the words ‘A Defiant Woman’ above the female star’s image. There’s also strong, inventive collage by Joanne Hummel-Newell and Anna Walker. Some works reference AbEx Minimalism, such as Tiago Duarte’s three bold and assured monochrome paintings on ringbound paper, while others, reference older Masters, like Caspar David Friedrich, in
the unsettling and melodramatic small epic oils by Jarik Jongman, and in the work of Mindy Lee who celebrates vibrant rococo impasto pleasures, all on a paper plate! Quirky individualism gives the show a freshness – a tender, tentative work by William Stein called ‘New Friends’ that could be the offspring of Richard Tuttle, or the irrepressible, animated animal-ish drawings by Oona Grimes entitled ‘Mashed Swede’, which are beautifully bonkers and hilarious. I liked Florin Ungureanu ‘ Zeitgeist’ in which the artist took a photo of children playing war in the devastated streets of West Berlin in 1962 and has painted on a skip with black rubbish bags spilling out of it which updates the image and points to the dark legacy the wall created in Germany. Found books are employed as the ground for some drawings, while Hannah Newell shows a found floor plan of a new house with the hand-written locations of ‘utility’, ‘French doors’, ‘kitchen’ etc. Taking the words ‘Steps Down’ from the plan as the title, Newell has typed her own text onto the image: ‘Where I was wide and open, suddenly I felt exposed’ which draws attention to the doorways and windows of the plan in a totally new and emotional way. Photographs are also used as found material for a larger collage as in Florence Mather’s ‘Tourist’ which snapshots figures within the larger city scene or Flora Parrott’s fascinating ‘Study of Vertebrae Extend’ which combines photographs of the side of the neck and front of the throat with latex and gaffer tape to create discombobulating portrait. And then, as well as painting in oils, acrylic and watercolour, pencil and ink drawings, there’s a drawing in iron rust – a new kind of work in dust. It’s called ‘Domestic Impression’ (dish) by Caren Hartley and imprints the sunflower pattern of a glass dish which makes me think doily, which makes me think cake, and then of course, it makes me think tea.
Afternoon Tea Helen Sumpter
A personal selection of 11 treats from the menu of
70 paper-based
visual moments. Kinga Lubowiecka
Framed within the careful creases of a plain white sheet the triangular pool of flesh-coloured pigment reveals in itself a bare and beautiful simplicity. Unveiled and on display but still remaining modest with the ability to be hidden from sight. Flora Parrott aught neck skin, stretches over arteries beneath, with the hills and valleys formed by the flesh creating deep dark shadows. Roughly fixed with tape in loose layers, against patches of turquoise blue, the images almost dissolve into abstract. Caren Hartley lectrons transferring from iron to oxygen have created here the pigment to emboss a perfect reverse sunflower, its white petals highlighted against a burnt orange oval. Or maybe it is a citrus segment? Albeit one that will leave a bitter, metallic taste in the mouth.
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Suzanne Moxhay
Rich, dense evergreens form a forest carpet from which emerges a ghostly chlorophyll figure. Odd shifts in scale transform fronds of foliage into outsize, outstretched arms. But the stormy backlit sky suggests that any ensuing embrace may be cause for concern rather than comfort. Ted Somogyi ot just a portable advert for a downloadable online jukebox, with a practical function, nor simply a piece of merchandise. Maybe more of a cheeky-tongued message, in print, about an experimental musician and printmaker, enjoying the sound of silence. Mindy Lee n a paper plate a fish-like form created in swirling grey paint peers out beneath a sickly sweet buffet. Oppressive rather than inviting, this confection of fat, flesh and colour hints more strongly of death than
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gastronomic delight. Chantal Powell
Oblivious to the separation from her fairground herd, this gaily painted pony gallops gamely on across a floral field. Is she liberated or lost? Perhaps both, but driven ever onwards by the jaunty organ music still echoing in her ears. Lorenzo Missoni avigating the globe might involve the translation of diagrammatic longitude and latitude lines that criss-cross a flat map into a physical journey. But a literal circling of the world, when repeated, as here, creates a new patchwork landmass, surrounded by now unchartable seas. Natasha Bailey ender missives of affection directed at La Serenissima are stacked in a sextet of identically sized sentiments. Letters formed into words and phrases declare love and longing but the affair is destined to be unrequited as the object of desire can never reply in return.
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Tony Charles
Entwined around each other the delicate strands of thread are twisted over and over until they knot into a thin, twig-like rope, rendered here in cool grey graphite. It would float forlornly within the picture plain of white were it not anchored to its invisible ground by its own sketchy shadow self. Alice O’Hanlon nimated, oil black ripples within a pink pearlescence of water radiate out from the faceless female figure semi-submerged at their centre. Sections from the image, isolated, enlarged and cut and spliced back onto a bisected page, disrupt and highlight the waves’ concentric course.
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The Artists
Natasha Bailey
Dear Venice, 2011, digital print & ink on paper, 32.8 x 30.3cm, ed of 2
Natasha Bailey is originally from Toronto, Canada and received her MFA in Media at Slade School of Fine Art in London, England. Bailey works primarily in performance and mixed media. She strives to break down the boundary between the artist and the audience while revealing the dynamics of relationships. At the core of her work Bailey challenges the symptoms she suffers as a result of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Although the subject of PTSD can be viewed as very serious, Bailey aims to explore her symptoms in a humorous and light-hearted way. www.NatashaBailey.wordpress.com
Beatriz Barba Calleja
Rome, 2011, collage, magazine & book cuttings, 23 x 36cm
The work of Beatriz Barba Calleja has been inspired by the writings of the multifaceted Spanish artist F.I.E.R.A. In her texts Beatriz discovered a surrealist and parallel world from which she could visualize and render images for others to see, using collage as the unexpected mirror between the text and the image.
Siobhan Barr
Our Father, 2011, collage, gold leaf, print, 297 x 420mm
Siobhan Barr’s work embodies the spirit of British humour; with tongue in cheek phrasing and cutting irony she assesses the modern cultural landscape, primarily in work utilising text as the medium of communication. She advocates ‘fun art’ and challenges social preconceptions within the art world that only the solemn and serious is great and valuable. Barr lives and works in Winchester. She holds a BA in painting from Winchester school of art, and has held 2 long-term residencies, since graduating in 2006. She is a founding member of a successful artistlead studio project and has exhibited in major UK cities prior to her selection to exhibit with WW Gallery at 54th Venice Biennale.
Zena Bielewicz
It Takes Two, 2011, digital photographic print, 44.45 x 31.43cm ed. of 20
Born in Poland, Zena Bielewicz moved to Canada where she graduated from Ryerson University in Toronto with a BAA in Film. Bielewicz primarily works with Film and Video where she explores themes of human relationships. In her Photography, Bielewicz breaks down the medium by applying the latest digital technology to challenge the two dimensionality of the still. In It Takes Two, Bielewicz adapts Mario Testino’s official engagement photograph of Prince William and Catherine Middleton and converts it into an anaglyph 3D still. By doing this Bielewicz makes reference to the role iconic figures play as part of consumerism and popular culture.
Claire Brewster
Hackney Bug, 2010, cut vintage map, pins, foam board, 40 x 30cm
Claire Brewster uses old maps, atlases and other found paper, to create beautiful, delicate and intricate 3 dimensional paper cuts of flowers, birds and insects. Her inspiration comes from nature and the urban environment in which she lives and a desire to re-use the discarded, unwanted and obsolete. Claire exhibits her work nationally and internationally and has been published widely.
Tony Charles
Spun III, graphite on card, 29.6 x 21cm, courtesy Platform A Gallery
Tony Charles is an artist practising in the North East of England where an industrial history continues to influence his work. Past experience of steel construction has given Charles an intimate knowledge of the qualities of the many industrial materials that feature in his practice. As an artist he manages to transfer this knowledge within an art historical and sociological setting. Steel wool is one of the materials that is repeatedly manipulated and investigated within his practice, both sculpturally and as the subject for drawings such as the ‘Spun’ series. Tony Charles is represented by Platform A Gallery, Middlesbrough, UK.
Deb Covell
Plastic Collage No 1, mixed media collage, 32 x 22cm, courtesy Platform A Gallery
Deb Covell is based in Saltburn in the North East of England. She gained her BA in Fine Art at Liverpool Polytechnic and her MA in Fine Art at the University of East London. Her work is rooted in the Everyday and her practice attempts to bridge the gap between the ordinary and familiar with the often idealistic quest for beauty and purity. Her collages explore a tension between illusionary space and the actuality of the material, whilst imparting a more intimate suggestion of the studio environment. Recent exhibitions include, Dander, Art Projects, London Art Fair and Secret, Royal College of Art, London. Covell is represented by Platform A Gallery, Middlesbrough, UK.
Anna D’Avanzo
Purple and Orange, 2011, inks on watercolour paper, 30 x 42cm
As an abstract painter, the concept behind Anna’s work portrays strong autobiographical elements that reflect and link directly her emotional response to the landscape and its environment. She does this by attempting to unravel the experiences of the moment from both external and internal points of view. This creative process incorporates a superstructure and the accidental potential that is fired up within it. This combined with shifting picture plains as well as depiction of colour allows conscious and well as unconscious shapes and forms to present themselves on the canvas. www.annadavanzo.co.uk
Serge D’Urach
L’Enfer, etching, ink and watercolour, 22 x 15cm
Serge D’Urach was born in Geneva and has lived in Venice for more than 20 years. He studied Oriental Languages and philosophy at Geneva University and later etching in Venice and dry point with J.P. Velly. In 1986 he was awarded a scholarship at the Swiss Academy in Rome. He has exhibited regularly with Calart Actual Gallery in Geneva and Segovia. The Galleria del Leone of Venice continues to represent his work at art fairs throughout Europe and the United States - Miart in Milan, Jacob Javits Center in New York, Art on Paper in London, Carrousel du Louvre “Art Paris”. Other exhibitions have been held in Beijing, Paris, Zanzibar, Armenia, Madrid, Rome, Granada and Los Angeles.
Shona Davies
Office party, 2010, aquatint etching, 19 x 19cm
Shona Davies develops the idea of ‘peep-shows’ and voyeurism in both her printmaking and 3D practice. She uses aquatint etchings to convey an atmosphere similar to that of a contemporary film noir. Davies is interested in enabling the viewer to glimpse fleeting moments in time and in ‘Office Party’ she captures the exuberance of a drunken moment in the photocopying room. Her narratives explore both the personal and the observed. Recently Davies has been working collaboratively with David Monaghan, Keiko Yamazaki and Jon Klein exploring animated film installation as well as exhibiting as a solo artist.
Kate Davis
Più Ritenuto (from the Duende Series), 2011, woven music score pg94, magazine cut-outs, x 27 x 37.6cm (unframed), courtesy Fred [London]
Kate Davis is a London based artist and a sculpture lecturer and fellow of the Royal College of Art. In 2007 she was artist in residence at the Wordsworth Trust and completed a major Dockland Light Railway commission at Langdon Park Station in 2010. ‘Più Ritenuto’ and ‘Cresem’ are from an on-going series of collage drawings titled Duende. Begun in 2009 in response to the death of her mother she weaves and cuts musical scores, pours red nail varnish and obliterates musical notes composing a kind of memento mori exploring in different ways how we consume time.
Katharina Daxenberger
Landschaft, 2010, acrylic on paper, 29.5 x 39.5cm, courtesy Florian Sundheimer Gallery
Katharina Daxenberger (b.1969), studied at The Munich Academy of Arts under Professor Helmut Sturm, Prof. Juliao Sarmento and Prof. Günther Förg, and has exhibited in a number of solo and group exhibitions exhibitions (e.g. 2010: Painting is always abstract. Contemporary Art from the Collection of the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich). Daxenberger´s work is never influenced by pre-decision, past experience, given knowledge or even by expectations of third parties, which enables her to re-encounter every new piece with whatever goes through her mind whilst painting. The picture ‘Landschaft’ expresses focus on this painting process, readiness to embrace the moment and – although the theme of landscape has often been interpreted before – involves venturing into a new beginning.
Alicja Dobrucka
From series: ‘I like you, I like you a lot’, 2010, digital c-type, 42 x 21cm, ed of 7
Dobrucka (b.1985 Poland), lives and works in London and Poland, has shown internationally, in the UK, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic, was recently a recipient of the highly competitive Deutsche Bank Fine Art Award in Photography and has been selected for New Contemporaries 2011. ‘Alicja Dobrucka’s evolving practice, temporarily stabilised and collected in her recent project, “I like you, I like you a lot”, powerfully encapsulates a double meaning of precariousness. Ostensibly a reflection on the artist’s and her family’s bereavement after the sudden tragic loss of her younger brother, the work opens up the personal space of mourning to broader affects and questions about vulnerability, youth, motherhood, domesticity and the passage of time.’ Excerpt from ‘The gift of death, the gift of life’ by Joanna Zylinska
Tiago Duarte
Offset Fragment 1, monotype, 15 x 13cm (1 of a series of 3)
Tiago Duarte is a Portuguese artist currently based in the UK. Monotype has been Duarte’s main practice since the beginning of 2000, and ever since then Tiago has been exploring the possibilities and limitations of the etching press when used for single edition work. Besides the traditional formal concerns in printmaking (paper, paint and technique) Tiago’s work explores technical tradition and pictorial investigation. The pressure for unorthodox approaches for this medium enabled him to explore printmaking beyond its traditional expectations resulting in a practice that both challenges the boundaries of painting and the capacity of printmaking to transmit the explorative connotations of modernist practice.
Wendy Elia
The King of Pop, 2011, oil on paper, 28 x 20cm
Wendy Elia works in series that explore the futile quest for truth in the digital age. Her interrogation of different modes of representation (from old Master paintings to black and white movies to contemporary images culled from 24-hour news channels) creates disconcerting narratives, loaded with symbols, that problematise a singular viewing position. Wendy Elia trained in London at St Martins school of Art and has exhibited widely, including at the National Portrait Gallery (2011, 2010), The Mall Galleries, 2008, selected for the Threadneedle prize 2010, and a finalist and public vote winner for the Sovereign European Prize, 2007. This year she has again been selected for the BP National Portrait Gallery award show. More info: www.wendyelia.com
Patrick Folkard
Querencia, 2011, pencil on paper, 293 x 390mm
Patrick studied at Wimbledon School of Art. His latest work reflects his current obsession with the art of toreo (bullfighting). In the drawing Querencia, Patrick is investigating the portrayal of both the space which the bull occupies and the space between him and the matador. Querencia (literally, a preferred place) is a place in the ring that the bull adopts - a place where he feels comparatively safe and where he is at his most dangerous. The matador must try to entice him out of that place.
Yvanna Greene
Stupid Cow, 2010, oil on card, 8 x 6.3cm (each card x5)
Yvanna Greene is an Irish artist living and working in London. She graduated from City & Guilds London School of Art in 2006 with a BA in Fine Art. Her work is informed largely by everyday life experiences. She is interested in themes of isolation and disconnection and the pressure one can feel to fit in and keep up appearances in an increasingly materialistic and image based world. The ‘Stupid Cow’ series has arisen from the conflicting and confusing emotions that have come with new motherhood. Selected for numerous competitions, Yvanna has exhibited in both the UK and Ireland.
Oona Grimes
Mashed Swede, 2011, letraset, letratape, vinyl, foam & spray paint 28cm x 38cm, courtesy Danielle Arnaud Gallery.
The Dream and Spiritual Diaries of Emmanual Swedenborg [16881772] were the catalyst. He didn’t leave a map or directions, only these 18th century missives from other realms. I misappropriated the communiqués and used them as a springboard. ‘Mashed Swede #2 & #11’ are two postcards from a series of 12 - reports and reflections from somewhere, I suspect is a saucepan away from anything Swedenborg might recognise. ‘Divine Nonsensia, all thy sense infuse.’ - John Hookham Frere Oona Grimes is represented by Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London
Susie Hamilton
Pink Plumper, 2009, acrylic on paper, 28x28cm, courtesy Paul Stolper Gallery
Susie Hamilton has shown with Paul Stolper since 1997 as well as exhibiting widely in the UK and abroad. She has had solo shows in Oslo and in Moscow and has been selected for numerous open exhibitions including John Moores, Whitechapel Open and Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Generally she paints figures in wildernesses (these may be casinos and banquets as well as arctic wastes) in which the figures are transformed into vulnerable, menacing or mysterious creatures. Currently she is working on a series of Women paintings: misshapen, obese, sometimes desolate figures originally seen in superstores and tourist attractions. This work, Pink Plumper, is from her related series of works about the grotesque and abandoned female body. Paul Stolper
Alia Hansen
Soft Resembling, 2011, acrylic on paper , 39.7 x 29.7cm
Alia Hansen (b. 1981 Ishimbay, Russia), lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark, graduated with an MA in Theatre Art from the Ufa Academy of Arts, Russia. Hansen’s brews of abstractions are developed in batches and she shifts from one painting to another, experimenting playfully with mark making. Hansen’s paintings are a probing of the delicate balance between experiencing nature and the universe of the abstraction itself, which is a central part of the Nordic artists’ craving for absorption. Alia fluctuates between techniques, pushing and challenging the paint until a kind of harmony is met. In contrast to this emotive imagery, banal solitary words form Alia Hansen’s titles, tempering and balancing the melancholy character of her paintings; the result, a prolific collection of finely tuned sophisticated studies.
Caren Hartley
Domestic Impression (Dish), 2011, paper, iron (rust), 29 x 21cm
Caren is an artist working in London. In her practice Caren uses a variety of materials including metal and paper to create images, intimate sculptures and installations that speak of relationships with objects and how they reflect the society and environment in which they find themselves. Her fascination lies with the lives of familiar objects – especially those that are seemingly unimportant or have fallen from favour. Following the themes of rebirth, simulation and object translations, Caren explores how a parody of the original is created when material truths and untruths are interfered with.
Sibylle Heil
Back in 5, 2011, digital photographic print, 20 x 26cm, ed of 5
Sibylle Heil graduated from Goldsmiths University, London 1998. She is based in London and her work is largely paint on canvas, photography and installation. Her subject varies from large scale paintings of insects to photographing miniature models in unusual surroundings.
Sadie Hennessy
Freud at Dreamland, (from the series ‘Beyond the Pleasure Gardens’) 2011, etching, 15x15cm
Sadie Hennessy creates hybrid objects & images which are both comfortably familiar and deeply unsettling. She operates within a cultural framework of ‘Englishness’ and explores the idea of nostalgia, and more pertinently, the construct of ‘faux nostalgia’ i.e. the yearning for a time that never actually existed. In August 2010 she won the Jealous Graduate Art Prize for her final MA show (‘Accident & Emergency’) at Central St. Martins. Since then she has been experimenting with various printmaking techniques, as a vehicle for her ideas, alongside her usual practice. She is currently artist-in-residence in the printmaking department at Croydon College of Art, and is represented by WW Gallery, London.
Jessica Herrington
Cave Drawing (1 of a series of 13), glitter, pencil, paint on paper, 29.5 x 21cm
This series of drawings were produced during a residency at WW Gallery, Jan- Mar 2011, culminating in the exhibition CAVE, an installation accompanied by small-scale sculptures and works on paper. Jessica Herrington’s work focuses on ideas of preciousness, value and excess and operates within a contemporary mode of making that can be considered ‘Provisional.’ Herrington (b 1985, Sydney, Australia) is an installation artist who has exhibited widely throughout Australia. She has received a number of prizes and awards, and was recently a Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University.
Olivia Hicks
Portrait of space after Lee Miller, 2011, photocopy collage, 27 x 36cm
Olivia Hicks is an artist who lives and works in London. Using architectural theory as a point of departure she explores the permeabilities between the body, complex emotional states and architectural spaces. She is interested in the sculptural idea of the room as a container or vessel, which objects and emotions can pour in and out of and drain, leak or overflow. She also reinvents how the landscape is represented in both real and imagined space.
Marguerite Horner
Swept Away, 2011, oil on paper, 20 x 20cm
Marguerite Horner takes a banal, unremarkable view of buildings, some trees perhaps, a road with a car moving along it, and gradually transforms it into something rich and strange. In nearly all her landscapes or urbanscapes there is a barrier, be it a wilderness of trees, a network of branches, telephone wires or even a traffic light. Behind the beauty of the surface, the something, whatever it may be, is hidden, and remains so and we, the viewer see only what the artist wants us to see. Mary Rose Beaumont
Marguerite Horner is based in London and has exhibited widely in Art Fairs and Group Shows, including at the ArtSway Open (2010), Threadneedle Prize (2010) Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2011, 2010, 2008, 2005), the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition (2010, 2005), Beverley Knowles Fine Art, C4RD, ROOM and WW Gallery. www. margueritehorner.moonfruit.com
Joanne Hummel-Newell
Wave, 2011, pencil, collage, 29.7 x 42cm
Joanne Hummel-Newell’s work is concerned with collage and the immediacy of spontaneous drawing. Fascinated by handwriting, children’s scribbles and telephone doodles, she strives to maintain a similar spontaneity. This approach allows her to explore the endless possibilities of composition, a nod towards an interest in the formalities of constructivism and the Russian Avante-Garde. Collecting ephemera is an important part of Joanne’s creative process and this often dictates the subject matter. Snippets of photographic imagery and text are surrounded by hand made marks suggesting a personal response to stories and narrative. UK Artist Joanne HummelNewell is a graduate from the Royal College of Art, London.
Benjamin Jamie
Sorry, 2011, oil, enamel & gold mica flakes on rabbit skin sized paper, 29.7 x 42cm, courtesy Zero 10 gallery, London
Benjamin Jamie is a painter currently based in London. His works on paper are derived from found images sourced from daily newspapers and the pieces are resolved on the same day that the paper is published. The images are then quickly rendered omitting irrelevant details, using lurid colours to extrapolate new meaning from the compositions. The title of the pieces are nothing to do with the original context of the depicted stories – an image is isolated to tell a different story and, as part of a series, they form a new social commentary. Benjamin is represented by Zero 10 gallery, London.
Jarik Jongman
Phenomena #4 (one of a series of 10 works on paper) 2011, oil on paper, 29.7 x 42cm
Jarik Jongman uses both his own photographs and anonymous pictures found in flea markets, books, magazines and the internet as a starting point for his work. Recently described as “a new Dutch Master�, Jarik Jongman (b.1962) once worked as an assistant to Anselm Kiefer and is now making serious waves on the contemporary art scene. His Phenomena paintings, with their metaphysical flashes of mysterious light, allude to the transience of existence. His work was selected for the Threadneedle Prize and Salon Art Prize 2010 and went on to win First Prize at the National Open Art Competition 2010. Jongman has exhibited internationally, including London, Berlin, Switzerland, Amsterdam, the 53rd Venice Biennale and the London Art Fair 2011. His work is held internationally in private collections and he divides his time between London and Amsterdam. Jongman is represented by WW Gallery, London.
Neil Kilby
Untitled 9, (Gaffa Tape & Spraypaint Series), 2010, Gaffa tape, spraypaint & watercolour paper 21 x 29.7cm
Neil Kilby’s work is about identity, desire & memory. Using his own personal history of music and skateboarding he fixes upon moments that hold fascination for him, taking them and abstracting them. While doing this, the work stops being about him and starts to take on multiple layers of meaning and talks about a much wider shared history. The series of works that ‘Untitled 9’ (Gaffa Tape & Spraypaint Series) comes from, is based on the use of gaffa tape by bands holding things like guitar straps on and make running repairs to instruments. The stencilled out, sprayed forms reference to how bands stencil their names on to their flight cases and other pieces equipment.
Liane Lang
General Patton’s Doorstop, 2011, hardground etching on Somerset paper, 22.5 x 19.5 cm (plus paper width) ed of 15
Liane Lang explores in her work the life of the object as a remnant of history haunting the present moment. Recent works have been engaged with sculptures and monuments, including Socialist Statues in Eastern Europe and Classical Statuary at the Royal Academy. Lang re-animates these objects by staging interventions and changing narratives and compositions, which are shown as photographic and video work. For Afternoon Tea, Lang is showing images from a new series of etchings, titled Essence of Revenge. Lang illustrates rumours and stories of the misuse or destruction of the sculptural portraits of once mighty men. Lang, a graduate of the Royal Academy, has exhibited widely and has work in numerous public and private collections.
Mindy Lee
Overfaced, 2011, collage and paint on paper, 18cm diameter
Mindy Lee uses an initial ‘pie in the face’/‘hammer horror’ humour in ‘Overfaced’ to seduce through squeamishness. The eye is tempted to identify recognisable parts and recall their severed origins. Enticing consumables are unpicked alongside revived bones and visceral paint as bodily substance. The mashing together of illusion and physicality regurgitates the image into the beautifully grotesque, where revulsion is pitted against the urge to ingest. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Condensation’, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London 2011, ‘ARTBLITZ’, Transition Gallery, London 2010. Next Showing at: ‘Connection Point London’ SE1 Project space, London, 24 Jun – 17 Jul. For more information please visit www.mindylee.co.uk
Eva Lis
Violence, 2011, cut paper, digital print, 29.7 x 21cm
Eva Lis’ work explores issues of globalization, consumerism and constructions of socio-political morality. She is interested in how human instincts for domination and supremacy are manifested in western society and how these tendencies operate within the rules of our sanitized culture. Eva Lis is a Polish born artist living and working in Hackney, East London. Lis is an AHRC award recipient and in June 2010 graduated from the Slade UCL with an MA in sculpture and was awarded the PrankerdJones Memorial Prize. Her past projects include ‘Tunnel Vision’ a public art happening in Hackney Downs, ‘Travelling Light’ at the 53rd Venice; and ‘Parade of the Denizens’ a horse drawn art exhibition in collaboration with Ed Pien. She is represented by WW Gallery, London.
Andrew Litten
Man with Dust and Dirt, 2011, oil, dust, dirt on envelope, 22 x 27cm
Born in 1970, Aylesbury, UK. Painting became a private activity whilst working as a photographic assistant in London and Oxford. Moved to Cornwall and began exhibiting with Dick the Dog in Penzance. In 2003, was included in a survey of nudes in New York which saw a review in the New York Times. Main exhibitions with Goldfish, and Litten has exhibited throughout the U.K. Ireland and U.S. Litten has work in the Milwaukee Art Museum and The Museum of Everything, London and in 2010 was included in ‘No Soul For Sale’ an exhibition of independents at Tate Modern.
Kinga Lubowiecka
Untitled, 2011, emulsion on photographic paper, 270 x 270mm
Kinga Lubowiecka is a Polish-born artist who, through her practice, explores the poetics of space. She is particularly interested in the balance between the revealed and concealed space within and around domestic objects and locations. This interest is reflected in her work, which takes the form of painted surfaces, made and found objects as well as video projections that expose the rhythms and balance of space. The exhibited work untitled, 2011 is part of a series of works the artist has created on photographic paper. The series explores the paper’s object-like quality and acts as a notation of particular domestic sites in Poland. www.kingalubowiecka.com
Enzo Marra
Grayson Perry (from the artist studio series), 2011, graphite on paper, 29.7x21cm
Grayson Perry is one of a series of graphite studies for oil paintings exhibited in Marra’s recent solo show ‘Demigods’, at WW Gallery, London. The paintings and drawings are a tribute to some of the artists who have inspired him, Marra’s own personal heroes and heroines, rendered as deified mortals. Marra’s nostalgic, painterly and richly impastoed work is often characterized by elements of history, mythology, surrealism and metamorphosis. Marra (b. 1975) has had commissions and exhibitions in the UK and in Italy, including the London Art Fair 2011, selection for exhibition in the Threadneedle Prize 2010 and the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009. He lives and works in Brighton and is represented by WW Gallery, London.
Florence Mather
Tourist, 2011, digital print, 42x29cm, edition of 3
Florence Mather is an artist who is in her final year at the Ruskin school of Fine Art, Oxford University. Her work is mainly influenced by her travels. This digital print is made from photographs she took in Dubai during her last visit there. For the past ten years she has witnessed the expansion of Dubai’s city landscape and the impact of the economic crash on the construction there, that has meant that most of the buildings are now left unfinished. What is meant to be a tourist haven is exposed as a gritty environment full of construction workers.
Jo Metson-Scott
The Open Road, 2011, ink jet printed on Harman by Hahnemuhle Gloss Art Fibre, 36 x 28cm, ed of 25
‘The Open Road’ is part of the series “And Then......” by Jo Metson Scott & Nicola Yeoman. The duo have collaborated (Jo a photographer, Nicola a set designer) for the past 4 years on the project, producing a series of ethereal photographs depicting mystical and beautiful worlds in English, woodland landscapes. ‘And Then...’ explores notions of childlike fantasies, escapism, and Neverland make-believe worlds that are created in times of play and adventure. The images capture elaborate dens and temporary spaces which exist for only a small time, using a few props, found items or the fauna around the locale.
Rob Miller
Book of Hours, 2011, 69 A5 drawings on A3 acid free layout paper / linen binding thread, 420x297x 11mm.
Each drawing is the result of 3 hours continuous duration, or until a single black MUJI gel pen was emptied. Total duration: 207 hours. The work originates from an interest in repetition, the reiteration of the same and its relationship to our temporality. We habitually repeat, and are involved in many forms of ritual that suggest a motivation intrinsically bound to repetition, and yet ‘there is something about the nature of repetition to unmake the very identity it seeks to confirm’. If repetition is played out too long it becomes a narrative within itself, operating somewhere between boredom and engagement.
Lorenzo Missoni
Viaggiatore ad Occhi Chiusi (shut-eyed traveller), 2010, collage, 39 x 27cm
Lorenzo Missoni, born 1965, lives between Udine (Italy) and Berlin. His work focuses on the reinterpretation of everyday situations and objects. He’s interested in creating images that can radically change the meaning of the objects while leaving intact their outer identity. In Viaggiatore ad occhi chiusi (Shut-eyed Traveller), some round cuttings snipped out of atlases are arranged so as to form an uninterrupted coastal line, and form unreal, imaginary islands based on the graphical continuity of the cuttings. Different places contribute to create isolation. Topography itself, which helps us map remote places without visiting them, contributes to creating this visual hermitage.
Suzanne Moxhay
Feralis, 2010, archival digital print, 35.6cmx29.7cm, AP, courtesy BEARSPACE, London
‘Suzanne Moxhay produces unsettling photographic work that is often rooted in an imaginative, dream landscape where civilisation is at once present but simultaneously absent. They call to mind the visionary writing of J. G. Ballard or genre films, like the western or horror movie, parallel worlds with their own rules and conventions. Moxhay works by building miniature “flats”, similar to early film sets,which are then incorporated as layers through various processes of digital manipulation. The resulting photos blend illusory and real space, leaving the viewer uncertain about scale or depth, which she says “appear to hover between the miniature and the epic”.’ Paul Bayley, curator The Florence Trust
Lisa Muten
A Defiant Woman, 2011, oil on found print, 22 x 15cm
Lisa Muten has been exploring in her work the relationships between geometry, space, time, memory and place. The geometrical shapes used in her current body of work map the surface of found images and prints to create possibilities for new narratives to emerge. T he overlap of paint on print edits the images original form and through the geometrical spaces allows new dialogues to emerge. Through the process of painting Lisa Muten suggests a further dimension beyond the flat surface - a presence beyond the visible which includes the folding of time and memory.
Hannah Newell
Steps Down 1/5, 2011, found pencil drawing on graph paper with added printed text, 420 x 297mm, one of series of 5.
Hannah Newell’s spatial practice deals with ideas surrounding site, place and non-place. In her work she investigates and contrasts our relationship with public and private space. At the core of these ideas is an investigation into the nature of being an ‘I’, amongst all that is other. Steps Down is the first in a series of 5. Working with found plans and drawing on her recent experience of returning to her family home after a year abroad, this piece explores the nature of home and personal space. She is continually inspired by ‘The Poetics of Space’ by Gaston Bachelard and the parts of our minds that contemplate whilst squatting in well-known corners.
Leigh Niland
Paradise Palm, 2011, 2 colour aquatint etching and carborundum print on Somerset Satin, ed of 7
American born (1976), UK trained Painter/Printmaker, Niland’s prints, drawings, paintings, and sculpture deal with themes of human emotional neglect conveyed through elements of landscape. Niland teaches Printmaking as Adjunct Faculty at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester alongside her active studio practice in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. The artist lived and worked in London from 1999-2009 primarily at public arts charities for the homeless and mentally ill including Core Arts, Crisis Skylight and Vision Impossible. 2008 MFA Printmaking graduate of Camberwell College of Art and 2005 Postgraduate of The Prince’s Drawing School’s The Drawing Year, her art is held in public and private collections.
Erika Nordqvist
The Village, 2011, collage, watercolour on paper, 30x 21 cm
Erika Nordqvist is interested in personal interrelationships and its flaws and the paper which she uses plays a vital part; the robustness and fragility of it, marks and cuts made, intentional and unintentional ones that scars the paper, pencil rubbings that won’t disappear and the imperfections and unsure lines that will have to make the final piece. Erika Nordqvist studied at the Slade School of Art in London and lives in Sweden.
Mimi Norrgren
Veil, 2010, photograph from live performance, wire, pipe insulation, tights, talcum powder, 297 x 420mm, ed of 5, courtesy Nicola Scaglione, 27AD Gallery, Italy
‘Veil’ is a cathartic, ritualistic performance whereby Norrgren shakes fine dust from a distended headpiece. Whilst she moves, the dust works its way free to fill ones surrounding space, vision and lungs, obscuring the artist as she moves blindly about the space. After her BA in Fine Art at Oxford University, an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, in 2010 Norrgren was shortlisted for the Saatchi New Sensations Art Prize. Tugged between sculptural object and performative action, her work often takes the form of live performance. Norrgren’s work is guided by images of unique landscapes and tradition some of which are routed in her Czech and Swedish ancestry. Web.me.com/miminorrgren
Alice O’Hanlon
The Echo on the Lake, 2011, acrylic, card, pencil, 42 x 29.7cm
Alice O’Hanlon is a London-based, mixed media artist. Her work takes as its starting point an interest in the life of memories and in the proofs of our existence after we have departed: the vestiges and markers of personal history left behind. These broad notions of trace and memory are often located in the personal, by drawing on memories and images from her own past, as well as found imagery. The tracing and appropriation of the past is both the subject of the work and the act and process by which it is created.
Flora Parrott
Study for Vertebrae Extend, collage, photo, latex, paper, staples, 42 x 32cm, 2011
Flora Parrott studied Fine Art at the Michaelis School of Art in Cape Town and The Glasgow School of Art. She then went on to graduate from the Royal College of Art with a Masters in Printmaking in 2009. Exhibitions include, Interstice at TestBed1, Robin Gibson Gallery in Sydney, Trapezius at the Herbert Gallery and Museum in Coventry and Dipole, a solo show and residency at the Ryedale Folk Museum. She is currently making work from a studio in London, lecturing parttime on the Print and New Media Course at Norwich College of Art. Flora is represented by Tintype Gallery, London.
Edd Pearman
ALLOTMENT No.12, 2009, pigment print on 255gsm Somerset Velvet, 21 x 30cm ed 10/30
Edd Pearman graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2002 with an MA in Fine Art. Pearman has had two solo exhibitions in London; ‘Social Studies’ at Catto Contemporary (2003) and ‘Nude & Bird Studies’ (2005), group exhibitions include Bloomberg ‘New Contemporaries’ (2002) and the ‘New Artist Unit’ at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (2006). Pearman’s curatorial projects include two group shows: “Sea Change’ (2005) at the Mark Jason Gallery and ‘Manderley’ (2009) at the John Jones Project Space. In 2011, Pearman will curate his 3rd project ‘Exam’ at the Transition Gallery, London.
Nikki Plews
Housewife series 1, 2011, set of 6 postcards, 6 x 4 inches each ed 1/2
Nikki Plews is a mixed media artist working predominantly in sculpture and installation. Domestic fragility and neurosis are the underlying themes in her work. Housewife series 1 is a series of photos taken as part of a documentation of the everyday chaos that surrounds her. Nikki is a Senior Lecturer at Chelsea College of Art and Design
Chantal Powell
A Place Of Refuge, 2010, oil on vintage wallpaper, 285 x 405mm
Chantal Powell creates objects and installations that powerfully and intimately explore the universal emotions that connect us. Exploiting the inherent vocabulary of her chosen materials she presents the viewer with a seductive invitation to explore myths and meanings, blurring the boundary between reality and imagination. The resulting works have a playful duality between things disclosed and things kept hidden and the viewer is drawn to place their own secrets and stories inside that imaginary realm. ‘A Place Of Refuge’ references a coming of age period. A time of longing for adventure and romance, of discovering she is a woman.
Maya Ramsay
Cracking Up, 2011, wall on polyester drafting paper, 297 x 420 x1mm
Maya Ramsay lifts pigment, texture and debris from surfaces in the built environment, transforming and re-presenting slices of our surroundings. Maya works with buildings that are due to be demolished or renovated, capturing the history imbued in our built environments. These works are part of a tradition of artists who push the material and conceptual possibilities of the medium of paint and who work at the junctures of painting, sculpture and architecture. Maya is currently undertaking the Axis/Florence Trust Residency Bursary (2010-2011) having been selected as an MA Star for Axis by Gill Hedley (2009). www.mayaramsay.com
Luke Renouf
Every little helps, 2011, pencil on paper 27.94 x 21.59cm
Luke is an artist from London, his first exhibition was in Orlando, FL. The piece ‘Every little helps’ is about the suffocating familiarity of things in everyday life. The figure in the background, to the right represents the overwhelming and intense nature of our societies material expectations. Luke doesn’t usually explain his pieces, instead allowing the viewer to interpret it as they please. He works with paints and pencils and does not like to plan extensively with his pieces, instead preferring to leap into an idea or feeling he may have.
ro.man
Giulia, 2011, digital print on 410gsm somerset paper, 42 x 29.7cm, ed of 12
Ro.man’s art practice sits at the interface between print, sculpture, photography and projection. She seeks altered contextual dialogues by using methods and materials in their own language but not for their intended use, most recently from the car manufacturing industry. By utilizing cultural reference points such as signage, early European cinema and car fetishism, underlying themes of loss and desire are examined and re-generated. Subtext is revealed in a variety of media and techniques, and is facilitated through the process of making whereby the role of chance plays a significant role.
Sardine & Tobleroni
The Sauerkrauts (‘You Got the Blues’ series), 2010, acrylic on paper
Art duo Sardine and Tobleroni divide the surface of their works into two halves of which the right-hand side is painted by Sardine and the lefthand side by Tobleroni. They have participated in numerous exhibitions in the UK and internationally, including WW’s exhibition at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009 and the London Art Fair 2011. Their 2010 solo show ‘We Love 77’ featured appearances from Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex, Don Letts. Recent solo shows include ‘Pot Shots’ at WW in London and CrossBreeding at Casa das Artes, Coimbra, Portugal. Sardine & Tobleroni divide their time between London, Portugal and Switzerland. They are represented by WW Gallery, London.
Luke Sellers
Unknown Man in Van Dyke-style Dress and Alice Cooper Make-up, 2011, ink on digital print, 25 x 200mm, ed of 3
Luke Sellers (b.1984 Nottingham, England) studied at Goldsmiths College, is interested in how art works perform to the viewer. Interweaving pop cultural references with theatrical imagery, Sellers looks to create hybrid worlds where separate elements combine to produce new performative qualities. For the work exhibited in ‘Afternoon Tea’, he was drawn to the nose of an existing image, showing a gentleman in fancy dress. The nose, straight and fine – it’s owner displaying his period costume – parallels the nose of another modern day gentleman performer, his make-up appearing to haunt the eyes and mouth of the unknown man.
Soo Shin
Untitled, 2010, watercolor on paper, 36 x 24cm
Soo Shin was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1981 and works mainly in Chicago, United States since 2008. Her works deals with solitude aspect of human and the human nature of uncertainty, questioning everyday languages in relationships. She talks her subject through diverse mediums, including sculpture, drawing, painting, sound and video. Those works have references of human body that locate in between physical and psychological states.
Ted Somogyi
iTunes.bag, 2011, Ink and combined process on Cason Vellum, 21.6 x 27.9cm
Ted Somogyi has participated in exhibitions at the Smithsonian Museum, Oakland Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, MASS MoCA, University of Pennsylvania and Micro Museum in Brooklyn, NY. He has received grants from the Puffin Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission and Friends of Urban Art and Culture. Mr. Somogyi has maintained a 37-year practice titled: World Peace Project, performing in the England, France, Switzerland, India and the U.S. His work deals the play and display of ordinary things: things not as they are seen, but as they are informed by consciousness at the moment of seeing.
William Stein
New Friends, 2011, pencil, coloured pencil and chalk gesso on paper 35.5 x 25.3 cm
William Stein’s works are intuitive, multi-layered explorations into an inner enigmatic place. We witness a rich diversity of subject matter within his practice, with a meditative intentionality driving the whole. The works should be considered not simply as images for cerebration though, but as things corporeal, objects to be experienced. They are each a temper, they hold feeling, but they are also of substance: the paper or panel, the chalk ground, the smeared oils and muds, the metals, the violence of the drawn mark; there is no hierarchy, each element brings equal weight and support to the foundation of these emotional structures.
Ayuko Sugiura
Pigeons, 2011, paper, threads, series of 4, each 21 x 14.85cm
Ayuko Sugiura’s works are underpinned by an interest in the iconography and myth constructed by contemporary society. She merges these constructs and develops them into ‘hybrid’ sculptural forms, or immersive environments. ‘Pigeons’ are a series of studies for her sculptural work, inspired by the familiar scene of pigeons pecking at something on the street. Occasionally, they flock to form a mass of beautiful and fluid patterns. In making these drawings, Ayuko tries to negotiate and pinpoint the contours of these masses by sewing the pigeons together, however the outline of their bodies automatically creates new and compelling shapes and forms.
Boa Swindler
Should’ve gone to Specsavers, 2011, mixed media on paper, 29.7x21cm
Inspired by the techniques of DaDa, Boa Swindler works across media with subject matter derived from memories, news headlines, tv and advertising, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. The emphasis is on simplicity and during the creative process nothing is corrected. Swindler trained in printmaking and painting at CSM, LCC and UEL. Internationally exhibited, including the 53rd Venice Biennale and the London Art Fair 2011, her work is in private collections in New York, Tokyo, Zurich and London, including the Factory Art Collection and the V&A Museum. Swindler is represented by WW Gallery and is currently preparing work for an exhibition there in Autumn 2011.
Jane Taverner
British Nerds, 2010, collage on paper, 10 x 15cm
Jane Taverner’s work fuses vintage aesthetics with a modern psychology to create idiosyncratic, often darkly comic imagery. Producing primarily small scale, collage-based paper works, Jane wryly comments on political, cultural, and social issues. On occasion, her work is merely absurd - inviting the viewer simply to laugh at it’s essentially nonsensical state. Utilising hand-made techniques, Jane’s work has an authentic, tangible quality and evokes a sense of nostalgia and charm…with a vague unease. ‘British Nerds’ appropriates iconic imagery, creating a witty celebration of brains over brawn.
Sally Taylor
Mouth Full of Triangles 2, 2011, graphite and collage on book cover, 24.5 x 19cm
Sally Taylor’s drawings seem to be in a constant state of urgent communication. The intensity of her worked surfaces reach out to us in a scream that is both visual and silent, a cry that conveys a profound emotional depth and provides an experience that is consistently powerful. Recent solo exhibitions: Mouths and Marks, MIMA – Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (2011), Mouths with Triangles, Duckett and Jeffreys, North Yorkshire (2010); group exhibitions include Jerwood Drawing Prize 2009, Personally Political: Contemporary Drawing, Tacheles, Berlin (2009).
Florin Ungureanu
Zeitgeist, 2011 acrylic on newspaper, 28.5 x 42cm
Romanian born artist, Florin Ungureanu, cites his work in a postcommunist domain. Questioning power structures, issues of identity and notions of the “other”, he presents us with ‘Zeitgeist’. A recurring motif in his work, the universal skip, combined with the desolate surroundings of an abandoned place, we are left questioning whether he is presenting us with post-communist detritus or postcards from a brave new world. Ungureanu states that through using this ambiguity combined with humour and irony, he is interested in exploring “how they influence beliefs and perceptions, further exploring the need for uncertainty and the metaphysical loneliness of the human being.”
Anna Walker
Fragments 1, 2010, collage, ink, household paint on card, 15 x 10.5 cms
Anna works in a variety of mediums. Her specialist knowledge and research interests include: the role of myth and storytelling in today’s society; the application of arts to create community and benefit wellbeing; and the ongoing relationship of the working of our bodies and minds that challenge the way we construct our history, our identities and our selves. One of the main components of Anna’s work is storytelling but without a fixed narrative, text and images become glimpses or fragments of sentences and stories leaving the viewer to arrive at their own meaning. ‘Fragments 1’ is a drawing from a series of works that delve into dreams and memories.
Caroline Walker
Study for Upstairs Downstairs, 2010, oil on paper, 30 x 42cm
Caroline Walker’s work explores the relationship of woman and domestic space through the staging of narratives with a model in hired houses. Sitting somewhere between the real and the virtual the figure is at once veiled and framed by architectural space and light, and at times lost or multiplied in reflective surfaces. ‘Mirage’ and ‘Study for Upstairs Downstairs’ are both studies for large scale paintings. Walker graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2009, and recent exhibitions include a solo show at Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, and inclusion in the forthcoming British painting show at Prague Biennale 5.
Stephanie Wehowski
Untitled, 2011, coloured pencils on black paper, 21x 29.7cm
German born Stephanie Wehowski usually works in large-scale sculpture and installation, which focus on having a direct physical effect on the viewer or creating an atmosphere, which allows viewers to dive into introspection. Recently the artist is experimenting with hypnagogic and trance states from different mystical traditions. The drawings are the process of giving these states visual form and capture the hidden and often surprising symbolic beauty of arising visuals from these experiences
Julie Westerman
Loversleap, 2011, digital print on Somerset paper, 18 x 26cm, ed 1/10
Julie Westerman’s current research uses technologies and software more commonly associated with design and animation to make physical sculptural works. Moving between the digital and the material, the final forms combine the intangible, the transitory or the ephemeral with the monumental and the sculptural. The enquiry lends a cool detachment to the approaching apocalyptical events. Recent projects include Drawing Space 2010 with Stephen Hüsch for LoBe Berlin, Commissions; Thinly veiled, Grand Opera House, Belfast; Illuminated Carpet, in ‘Enlightenment’, Durham and exhibitions; ‘Inter…’, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, 2004; and ‘Afterwards’, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, 2009
Chiara Williams
Venus #4, (one of a series of 6) 2011, acrylic on paper, 29.7 x 21cm
Working across sculpture, installation, painting and video, Chiara Williams reinterprets iconic or familiar imagery from art and culture, often combining unusual objects and materials, such as egg yolks, copper, pigment, mirrors, and textiles. Her most recent series of paintings ‘Venus’, return to the subjects of the mirror and the gaze, and themes of vanity, beauty and identity. Williams is curator and co-director of WW Gallery in Hackney, East London and her work has been shown nationally and internationally including at the 53rd Venice Biennale and the London Art Fair 2011. She grew up between Moscow, Venice and London and studied Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford and Audio Visual Production at London Metropolitan University.
Afternoon Tea: Works on Paper Published by WW Gallery, London on the occasion of the exhibition Afternoon Tea, 30 May – 12 June 2011, The Quaffers Pavilion, Campo San Polo, Venice, Italy. Part of the ‘UK at the Venice Biennale’ programme and the wider Biennale Collateral exhibitions, 54th Venice Biennale. www.wilsonwilliamsgallery.com/venicebiennale.htm Designed by Debra Wilson and Chiara Williams Printed by WW Projects Ltd., London All images © the artists. Many thanks to all the artists and their galleries for their images and accompanying texts. With thanks to Cherry Smyth & Helen Sumpter for their essays. Afternoon Tea was funded by WW Projects Ltd. © 2011 WW Gallery All rights reserved