Christina Lucas
The piece, ‘Touch and Go’ is one that I particularly appreciated. Nothing to do with the actual windows formulated into words in all honesty, it was purely the video that encapsulated me, though the words were a nice touch (mind the pun). The video put me on a higher emotional intensity, somehow picking me up onto a higher plateau of emotional awareness that accentuated to me the sarcastic yet boldly discreet dark humour sunk deep into the circus appropriate music. It enshrouds the video that to me incorporates a true hatred and contempt for an inanimate object; this idea that the object has in fact caused the injustices and permitted the vices that are believed to have been committed under the buildings’ roof seems crudely ridiculous. This was surprisingly inspirational given my generally irritable nature around video artwork (possibly due to my frankly underwhelming experiences in being taught the subject matter as an art form) and the way in which the emotions plaguing this video are portrayed and elevated in this artwork have given me a better understanding of not only video art as a whole, but also how emotions can be manipulated artistically to deliver both comedic ventures and sinister underlying twists that delve deep into the heart and minds of the viewer; I shall keep the ideas and thoughts I have gained in viewing this piece at the forefront of my mind for the coming pieces that I create.
The rest of the writing below is comprised of statements written by the artists and/or their peers about the pieces and their ways of practice.
George Sherlock'My recent practice has involved exploring and extending the possibilities in the use of acrylic paint on different surfaces. Looking for a technical solution that could generate new content has led to experimentation with a whole range of domestic chemicals mixed with acrylic. In its preparation the paint is balanced from thick to thin and sometimes includes commercial polymer house paints. Images are painted on the studio floor where the polythene is turned into a shallow bath in which paint is allowed to mix and separate according to the quantity of water used. This settles into its own structure and the drying process can take weeks. The process allows for the extraction and addition of water and new paint which generates unexpected configurations. Finally the image is reversed either through printing onto a surface, or, as in Polycrylic Decades, is viewed through the polythene sheet.
This painting is a new departure, stopping at an earlier point in the overall process than usual. The phrase ‘ironic sublime’ came to mind since the materials with which I am creating images, within the traditions of modernist abstraction, have prompted a selfconsciousness towards the degradable qualities and effects of the plastics and chemicals used.'
Geraldine Swayne'Geraldine Swayne is an artist who initially worked as a pioneer operator in London’s burgeoning film effects industry, making the worlds’ first super-8 to IMAX film “East End” in 1999. Although better known as a painter she is also a member of the legendary ‘Krautrock” band FAUST, and is currently finishing the group’s first studio album in 25 years. She has exhibited widely, most recently at The Barbican, London, The Detroit Museum of Modern Art and The Wexler Centre, Ohio. Her latest project is a series of paintings based on the childhood of Lydia Lunch. She is a finalist in this years John Moores’ Painting Prize, at the Walker Art Centre, Liverpool.
A painter of darkly seductive images that oscillate between real and metaphysical realms, between the imaginary and the deeply familiar, her unique painterly world is peopled by a cast of strange, lost, and loved characters, present and absent. These are coaxed out of paint or ink in a highly charged manner, toying evocatively with materials and subjects without pandering to the illustrative, the obvious or the sentimental.'
GL Brierley'This work is one of a series that examines the fetishistic nature of painting and the way it mirrors a private world.
There is a seduction/repulsion dynamic discussed in the writings of the theorist Julia Kristeva. She argues that for a child to separate from the mother, he/she has to see her as abject, which in turn renders the maternal body a site of both repulsion and attraction. This primal repression, she argues, can be displaced onto another object, a fetish. With the work, paint is poured, dripped and allowed to scab and wrinkle in layers. Amidst this unruliness, glazes are used to detail, groom and lovingly cherish the resulting object/subject in its state of becoming. The result is a 'paint personality' constructed from inherent alchemical accidents.
With this series there are echoes of the ethnographic artifact. I was thinking also of the newly discovered natural worlds depicted in 17th-century Dutch still life paintings, where ultimately the tulip became a commodity fetish. In my painting there lurks the ghost of the Victorian male collector, perhaps bringing to mind continuing contemporary themes of public/private display and the fetishistic gaze of ownership.'
Keith Coventry Keith Coventry creates paintings and sculptures which manipulate legacies of Modernism to address conditions of contemporary urban life. His work demonstrates an enduring interest in the dark flipside of idealism: urban decay, social failure, drug abuse and alienation. Many of the art historical references that Coventry deploys are defined by the Utopian ideals of Modernism, the aim of which was to refashion the world. He plays with these beliefs and shows them to be misplaced, even misconceived, the gulf between belief and reality stimulating a series of troubling undercurrents in work.
Coventry's idiosyncratic and personal project to create a form of contemporary history painting encompasses an immense range of references. His paintings and sculptures pit art history - Malevich, Rodchenko, Dufy, Morandi, Sickert, International Modernism, Minimalism and Pop Art - against images of heroism and idealism, and dissolute decadence and aberrant behaviour. Coventry's subjects range from the racism of the football terraces to the commodity status of the artwork, from the perfection of the proportions of a supermodel's face to the degradation of the crack den.
Phillip Diggle(Punctuation as per artist's submission.)
its talking time for the moon boys sitting in the rose garden rolling in the hay between the devil and the deep blue sea against the Machiavellians against the golden calf of realism
Thank you (falettinme be mice elf agin)
Zbynek Sedlecký
'Zbynek Sedlecký generally uses acrylic colours on canvas to create his compositions. His gesture is quick, brushstrokes giving life rapidly to cityscapes where the human presence is often only evoked. The result looks like a sketchbook, an agile collection of transient thoughts. Although large in scale, his images refuse to freeze the moment.'
© Dean Ross.
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