Claire Blundell Jones
Claire’s practice includes performance, video, installations and participatory public art. She creates work mainly in the public realm, which develops directly out of the relationships built between the audience and herself. For this exhibition, previous photography will be on display, as well as her recent collaborative work with filmmaker Ed Hartwell, a narrative short film about Tumbleweed Girl, a lonely, barren anti-hero travelling through London and beyond, accompanied by her tumbleweed. Searching for love and attention, Tumbleweed Girl seeks confirmation and friendship as she travels, and engages the public to respond to both her and her rather unique companion. Recently, Claire re-enacted the performance in Sheffield for “Perambulator”, a digital and live art event. Filmed by Ed Hartwell, this footage was projected in Sheffield’s independent arthouse cinema, The Showroom, to a secondary audience. The artist has also been invited to the Anti-Festival in Finland to perform as ‘Tumbleweed Girl’ this coming September.
Richard Cramp
Richard’s practice revolves around the notion that ‘seeing is believing’. Just as people see a magician’s illusion as a possible reality he wants them to look at his work with the same permissiveness. He uses a person’s perception, association and imagination to conger up alternative realities/worlds that are extensions of the existing space. His use of architectural constructions, such as doors, corridors and stairs, give the spectator a recognisable framework, which they can then perceive as an entrance or exit to a further, unseen space or inaccessible other world. It is this type of perception that he is interested in - looking at perspective, space awareness and how the brain reads what the eyes see. In addition to doing residencies in France and with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Richard has exhibited as part ofArt Futures in The Bloomberg Space, and at The Jerwood Space, where he was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize.
Karen D’Amico
Karen’s art practice presently focuses on the devising of various groupings and systems as agencies of connecting and interpreting notions surrounding identity/legacy, accumulated histories, and sense of place. By incorporating maps, text, installation, assemblage and the photographic image in her work, she juxtaposes and manipulates objects and images in an attempt to order, contain and re-present them in various contexts. For this exhibition, Karen has created an installation which takes UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) as its trajectory and re-presents the index’s ‘wellbeing’ statistics in the context of a poker game. Subverting the poker table, cards and chips, she presents an opportunity to reflect on the implications of geographical location/origin as well as the contrasting notions of random-ness and fate with that of autonomous control over one’s circumstance. In addition to participating in various group shows in the UK, Karen has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La Coruña Spain, as part of the IX Mostra International Exhibition.
Renata Fernandez
Renata’s recent work concerns itself with finding the common ground between the different disciplines she expresses herself in: drawing, painting and sculpture. Although she works with the figure, her aim is to make it almost disappear; seeking the abstraction of the figure, a seemingly simple image is made out of many complex layers. Renata has reached a stage where she “moves knowingly”, following a specific direction to the drawing, using the humble tool, the charcoal, the whiteness of the paper and the putty rubber as a means of articulating her ideas, thereby using a minimum of elements. As an artist she easily becomes the tool, which is a huge part of the enjoyment of making work, and in turn engenders a sense of release. As even Richter acknowledges, in order to paint it is essential to achieve an environment of freedom, starting with getting rid of the original idea, forgetting the given image or the original source of inspiration, stop imposing and “listen”; listen carefully to the painting or the drawing or the sculpture in progress, and allow it to guide you towards a conclusion, whichever that is, and assume the consequences, without fear, confident that you have nothing to lose.
Helene Kazan
Helene’s artistic process takes the basic principal of architecture and places it in an artistic context. As an architect might, she begins the process with a drawing that later forms the blueprint for a maket, which she then turns into a three dimensional, life-size structure. Her installations are designed to trigger that instinctual effect that structures have on an individual. Layering materials such as paper, glass or perspex, much like one would with Photoshop, she builds up an amalgamation of imagery and structures. At this point the likeness to architecture ceases, as Helene exercises the greatest difference between artist and architect, which is that the artwork has the freedom to be ineffectual, and seemingly useless, rather than functional. Helene received her BA in Fine Art, with First Class Honours, from Wimbledon School of Art in 2004, and has since exhibited in and around London. Currently she is curator for GXgallery, where she has conceived and begun developing the new contemporary project space, DeviateProjects, and is curating FLOCK, its inaugural exhibition.
James Lee
James’ work is based in drawing and concerns itself with the notions of memory and fantasy and how each plays a part in making us who we are. Using vinyl to produce drawings that are then mounted onto aluminium, he restricts himself to the exclusivity of using only two colours, Black and Gold. This self-imposed limitation results in creating work that is simple, bold, elegant and uncluttered. Focusing on remembered events and fictional scenarios, his work investigates notions of memory and imagination. James graduated from Goldsmiths College with First Class honours in Fine Art in 2002, and started his own clothing company, eio clothing. Eio clothing is a leading urban brand based in London’s East End and James’ designs tread a line between high-end street wear, directional style and original works of art.
Angela Smith
Angela’s paintings focus on how our ideas about childhood form part of our collective consciousness, so when we sense something sinister lurking beneath the surface, the outcome becomes unsettling. Angela is interested in the possibilities of a suggestive and mysterious narrative and in creating ambiguity and unease in the relationship between painting and the viewer. Having recently had a solo exhibition at the Clarion Gallery, London, Angela has also exhibited at the Henry Moore Galleries and The Royal College of Art.
Stephen Warrington
Stephen’s drawings and paintings deal with depicting familiar everyday objects, and his subject matter involves aspects of domestic environments. Moving away from depicting ‘a person in a space’, he focuses instead on the space itself, and is interested in the narrative potential that arises when the viewer can directly relate to this space. Recently, Stephen has begun to involve titles in his work in order to lead the viewer in to the piece. He is interested in not taking responsibility for where the viewer goes with it and titles so far are quotes taken out of context from specific fictional narratives which he then places into a general ‘art context’. A key element to his work is considering the way a painting relates to a wall, which relates to the surface ‘behind’ the illusionistic space depicted.