The Studios#2: drawing possibilities
Thursday 22 May - Friday 27 June
Preview Thursday 22nd May 6.30 -8.30pm
The Studios Gallery is delighted to present “The Studios#2 – Drawing Possibilities” an exhibition that explores the work of twelve artists…
Magda Archer, Lindsey Bull, Mike Chavez-Dawson, Jenny Core, Sophia Crilly, Carolyn Curtis Magri, Beatrice Haines, Stewart Kelly, Jim Medway, Klaus Pinter, Richard Shields, David Shrigley
…who use drawing to observe, record and respond to the world around them.
The exhibition opens as part of New Mills ArtsFEST 2014 with a preview on Thursday 22nd May 6.30 -8.30pm during which artist Mike Chavez-Dawson will restaging the curatorial performance ‘Reworked’ an ongoing project inviting collaboration and participation from artists and public. All welcome.
British artist and illustrator Magda Archer Magda Archer trained at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art and produces works inspired by her vast collection of paraphernalia from the 1950s onwards. In 1996 she produced artwork for The Beatles Anthology in partnership with Peter Quinell. She was also the co-writer and illustrator of the Harry Hill Fun Book with some of the resulting artwork being shown at The Liverpool Tate in 2000. Archer has also participated in several acclaimed group exhibitions, including ‘Kiss of a Lifetime’ at Vane, Newcastle in 2009 and in ‘London Calling’ in London in 2010 She has written and illustrated a children’s book, Watch Out Arthur!
Much of Archer’s artwork takes reference from British pop culture and typeface features heavily in her paintings, from tongue-in-cheek phrases to song lyrics. “I am particularly fond of nostalgic typefaces and I really enjoy the process of painting them.”
Her first solo show, ‘Crazy Mad’, was at the Cornerhouse, Manchester, in 2011.
Manchester-based artist Lindsey Bull is a graduate of Chelsea School of Art’s Fine Art MA, who since her first solo show in 2005 at Cornerhouse has caught the eye of curators and critics with her small-scale, mysterious oil paintings.
Drawing upon a lexicon of imagery from books on witchcraft and cults, to silent film stills and occult magazines, her paintings often depict figures enveloped by spaces that feel simultaneously familiar and unreal, “I explore perceptions of reality and illusion, investigating fragmentary instances where the real merges with the fantastical, I like to think of my paintings as interpreting a kind of ‘gothic psychedelia”. For Bull, “the idea of movement is important to the process of making: to create tension in a moment in time.”
Mike Chavez-Dawson is an artist-curator based at Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester. He instigated and curated the critically acclaimed shows ‘Unrealised Potential’ and David Shrigley’s solo show entitled ‘HOW ARE YOU FEELING?’ for the Cornerhouse (2012–13). His proposal ‘Beyond the Medium, A Rake’s Dream…’ made the Open 100 proposals for Artangel’s ‘OPEN’ 2013 and is now in production for 2015/2016.
He was recently selected by the Louisa Guinness Gallery to show at Design Miami, USA, 2013, and awarded the open submission for Emergency 2013 by hab, z-arts and word of warning. He has exhibited and performed at TATE Britain, Barbican, ICA, Cornerhouse, The Whitworth Art Gallery, and British Art Show 7 at Nottingham Contemporary and The Whitstable Biennale (2008).
Chavez-Dawson tends to present ‘propositional works’ that retain a healthy skepticism for participation and interpretation; this is usually through multi-part works that sit between performance (-art) and curation, often revealing the myth of the artist’s vision as against the audience’s reading.
Jenny Core is a Visual Artist who graduated in 2009 from The University of Huddersfield with a BA Hons in Fine Art: Drawing and Painting. She now lives and works in Manchester and exhibits her drawing works internationally.
Narrative, chance and play, these are the three main ingredients that contribute to the formation of the alternate reality/utopia that features heavily in Core’s work.
Explosions, splats and spills are amongst the many experimental processes, which
are employed to create these worlds. “My work is an investigation into the potential and diversity of drawing as a medium and not ‘just a process’. The materials I explore are a combination of bubble solution, graphite and ink with time led and performative processes. The object is captured on paper. It dissolves, explodes and ceases to exist in its current form. What remains is a mark of an object that once existed, a moment captured in time.These created forms have then been manipulated and appropriated to create playful narratives.”
Sophia Crilly is based in Manchester and is Director and Curator of Bureau. She trained at Manchester School of Art and has previously exhibited work in Berlin, Helsinki, London and New York, and has undertaken residencies in Helsinki and Rotterdam.
In an era of visual assault and mass reproduction, the ease with which images proliferate can be used as both a subject and tactic to question what art is and could be. Crilly’s practice both colludes with and critiques this avenue of contemporary artistic enquiry, through the ‘appropriation’ and ‘reproduction’ of found and archival imagery in her work, and the refashioning of images with historic currency as objects of art.
Her graphite-on-paper drawings are detailed, labour intensive recreations of thematically researched images, sourced from the Internet, reportage and personal photographs. Each drawing operates pictorially, both individually, and as part of a series, placing it within a broader, complex narrative and unfolding history.
Carolyn Curtis Magri studied drawing and painting at Manchester Metropolitan University, achieving a Master of Philosophy in Fine Art in 2003. Since then, she has taught Art and Design in 5 different establishments of Her Majesty, and designed and taught Visual Poetry courses at The Mary Ward Centre in London. She currently works with ex-offenders in the community. She has exhibited her work in London, Malta and Brussels and has been collaborating with a poet at the annual Chicago Calling Festival since 2000.
Curtis Magri's drawings are informed by the environmental debris, the sharp edges and uncomfortable physical and psychological positions of prison life. Her work includes a series of small drawings made as a result of her discussions with self-harmers. She is currently looking at Prison Loaf (Grue) as inspiration for a series of large drawings and small sculptures.
Stewart Kelly studied textiles at Liverpool John Moores University and Manchester Metropolitan University. He works primarily with drawing, printing processes and stitched textiles.
Kelly’s work observes and documents the human form, recording its contours and expressions. The drawn and stitched lines are an accumulation of observations and experiences giving rise to the many possibilities of interpretation. Occasionally figures are visible, whilst in contrast a line may represent a gesture or brief moment in time. “I record my responses spontaneously, focusing almost entirely on the subject, unaware of the image evolving on the paper. As the lines accumulate and overlap, the image becomes abstracted. The figures become less recognizable almost camouflaged amongst the multitude of lines”.
Alongside his creative practice, Stewart works in health and education as an artist and tutor.
Jim Medway is an ‘imagemaker’ and educator. He studied in Manchester and is now based in Furness Vale, High Peak, Derbyshire. He has exhibited across the UK and beyond, with work in the Art Council collection and Government Art Collection. His graphic novel Playing Out was published by Blank Slate last year, and he has work in the Arts council and Government Art Collections.
Jim Medway's drawings combine social realism with children's book anthropomorphism. The works are based on the observations, or are extrapolations from objects such as ice pop wrappers, empty boxes of bangers, and pledges of love scrawled on bus seats, representing anonymous characters that everyone seems to recognise – “…friends often tell me with delight that they've just seen some of my cats outside the cornershop or brawling at the taxi rank.”
Typically depicting a young urban socially and politically excluded underclass his drawings merge ideas of 'urban other' with 'animals as other' and reveal a cast of cheeky or loveable rogues.
Paradoxically, turning people into cats seems to humanise them, in the sense that we are often closer to our pets than our siblings.
Klaus Pinter lives and works in Vienna, Austria. His drawings have been exhibited widely across the globe.
Addressing issues such as mass-production, value and our ‘throw away society’ the work blurs the boundaries between sculpture and drawing.
“Through interactive engagement leading to the transformation of a drawing into sculpture, the piece shifts into a substantively different level of interpretation.”
Richard Shields graduated from Manchester Metropolitan university in 2006 with a BA Hons in Sculpture. Shields is currently based in Manchester where he runs a small studio called ‘The Other Side of The Door Is Red’ in the Hotspur Press. He has exhibited nationally and internationally both as part of the collective and on solo projects.
Shields’ practice investigates varied contemporary issues through the use of the site specific, found objects and traditional skills. His pieces contain a duality between what is often seen as valuable permanence found in the process of drawing and mark making and the disposability of everyday encounters. Whilst producing contemporary works Shields looks to history both as an indicator and to contextualize events that occur in his own life and to the wider public. His past curatorial explorations in the site specific have seen him apply a range of media from oil paint to swimming pools, projectors and paper coffee cups. His topics of interest lie in financial posturing, religion and the autopsy of artistic process through an allegory with a sense of humor.
Macclesfield born David Shrigley graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 1991 and now bases himself in the city. He has had an international career spanning two decades and was nominated for the 2013 Turner Prize. His Thumbs Up sculpture is expected to be installed on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth during 2016.
He is best known for his humorous drawings that make witty, wry and sometimes dark observations on everyday life. His deliberately crude graphic style has an immediate and accessible appeal, while simultaneously offering insightful commentary on the absurdities of human relationships. Finding humour in the bizarre and inconsequential with immediate and attainable appeal, his work often asks questions about the nature of contemporary art and its audience. Shrigley also works in photography, sculpture and film and is the author of several books.
The exhibiton continues till Friday 27th June at The Studios, 12 Union Road, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 3ES. Viewing times Thursday 11am – 7pm Friday 11am – 4pm or by appointment tel: 07753842861 More info: New Mills – 20mins direct from Manchester Piccadilly or 40mins from Sheffield.
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Press enquiries – Lyn Bannister info@thestudios.co Tel: +44 7753842861 |
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