Sedition

I have three pieces of work selected for exhibition in an upcoming show in September - Sedition in Tullie House Art Gallery.

Ironically, given the nature of the work and the dominant material they will be scattered across the gallery space in a manner that could be described as 'seasoning'.

I am thrilled to be included in this exhibition of excellence and innovation in Cumbria, and am delighted to be able to exhibit the selected pieces in such a context, one of my all time 'art' heros (if one can have such a thing) is fellow exhibitor Russell Mills. I first experienced Russell's work in Sonic Boom in the Haywood, London, a fantastic exhibition curated by David Toop and written eloquently about by Guy Brett who I have again fortuitously, had the pleasure of meeting and digging alongside in LYCs garden clearing parties.

Russell and collaborator Ian Walton's use of conceptual and intellectual rigor and reasoning, coupled with an advanced visual aptitude and grasp of the spatial and emotive properties of scale and habitat made Mantle an extremely engaging and life affirming work. They combined accessibility and an immersive environment with wit and allegory, and could articulate what they were doing!

"Accepting that history and memory feed continuity and change, giving shape to living things and substance to our speculations of possible futures, Mantle explores the idea of land as force and as a metaphor for transformation, whilst also seeking to articulate a sense of the immense global influence of human impact on the landscape over time. Mantle has evolved out of, and is a reflection on, a multitude of inter-related ideas born out of our awareness of the aesthetic of the natural world as being profundly and inextricably political and economic. It dwells on the uneasy and currently unbalanced symbiosis between land as fundamental matter and how we shape it and are in turn shaped by it. "

Sonic Boom was the first art publication I went overdrawn for, pre-amazon addiction I saw only the present as the chance to buy the book and learn more about the artists exhibited and their work, as it came with a sonic art works CD my Dad and I spent many an interesting afternoon surrounded by speakers blurting out the fascinating and affronting noise of a electric guitar being dragged along behind a car, a video camera recording its own demise and water droplets at high speed.