The Lloyd Gill Gallery presents 'In Absence' curated by Jamie Durling
13 Feb 2010 to 12 Mar 2010
'In Absence' curated
by Jamie Durling
The exhibition will include painting, photography and sculpture. Under Jamie
Durling's curation, the exhibition will show works which express a sense of
absence, solitude or emptiness. This could mean a fleeting moment of solitude
experienced by the artist or the subject of the image. 'In absence' could be in
the form of an image, which conjures thoughts of absence, in its myriad forms,
in the mind of the viewer.
Artists in this exhibition:
Angie de Courcy Bower, Yuco Ota, Tahnee Lonsdale, Mirjam Mölder-Mikfelt, Jo Seong Hee, Mark Morris, Tsendpurev Tsegmid, Jamie Durling
Mirjam Mölder-Mikfelt
Mirjam Mölder-Mikfelt is an Estonian artist, working in oil, acrylic and mixed
media on canvas. At an early age she developed a serious interest and desire
for drawing. Since then, her life has always been filled with art and the desire
has grown into a passion. She studied in the painting department of Tartu Art College in Estonia, however, she decided that
the most eligible person to teach her art is herself. Now, as an autodidact
artist, she has evolved her own style and is confident in everything she does.
Mirjam enjoys the process of painting, and needs to experiment constantly
always trying something new. She has become fascinated
by the beauty inherent in the human figure and has been painting mainly
nudes. Her work focuses on depicting nudes in an untraditional, sensually
exciting way. She doesn't use models and paints mostly by heart, finding
realistic appearance and correct proportions unnecessary. Mirjam's use of
colour is inspired by her synesthetic experiences and is central to her work.
She loves the colours she sees and feels, the colours of life, and love. Mirjam
has also a keen interest in photography. If she's not painting, she's probably
taking pictures or restoring old photographs.
Angie de Courcy Bower
Whilst a Fine Art student at Brighton University (BA Hons) and later, Leeds
Metropolitan University (MA), Angie's practice developed through abstraction,
minimalism, conceptual art and sculpture before returning to figurative
painting. Fascinated by the complexities of the human condition, Angie strives
to give form to her ideas and feelings about life and our connection to the
world. Drawing upon archetypal and mythic messages, and coupling them with
contemporary concerns, Angie examines the nature of consciousness: considering
issues around identity, freedom and love to cruelty, suffering and mortality.
Searching for knowledge and understanding in what may be hidden, even dark,
territory Angie tries to articulate the hopes and fears which permeate
existence and have such an impact on our potential. Like life itself, the
paintings may become joyous, gloomy, ironic, ambiguous or funny.
In using the figure as a viable conduit for explorations of modern culture,
adopting familiar elements and painterly values, Angie aims to create
statements which are vivid and timeless, and which invite an emotional
immersion - with an engaging simplicity that not only belies deeper
philosophical speculation but also resonates with the insights of a
non-specialist audience, as a visitor once noted:
'As a non-artist I often feel shut out of art, as if artists are speaking in a
language I don't understand. Not so with this exhibition! These painting spoke
to me about my own life. Wonderful. '
Yuco Ota - H e A t
Through Yuco's paintings, she explores the idea of "heat" as a power
source linked through the natural and emotional world to us; a synthesizing
between our emotions and energy created from the heat in a state of flux. Yuco
uses physical appearance of fire, smoke, embers, and ashes as imageries of heat
in her works. Yuco's responsive to the feel and look of them. And she attempts
to personify them from her visceral interpretations. Those who inhale and
exhale heat, make her think of endless repetition of birth, burn, and die. The
similar process also repeats in the individual mentality like a rolling wheel
of fortune. Begin to be end; end is to begin. Somehow, this natural order of
things is depressing, and emptiness. But still Yuco feels compelled to expose
object that could be carrier of heat as in flux and unchangeable karma. They
are corpse and eggs at simultaneously, and Yuco wants to preserve them as
adorable as she perceives.
Tahnee Lonsdale
In 2007, Tahnee graduated from Byam Shaw School of Art. Her degree show
launched her straight into the real world of Art and Tahnee immediately started
showing my work in a number of galleries across the capital. Tahnee now rents
her own studio in West London, where she
spends her days and nights working on new pieces for exhibitions and
commissions, amongst many other things. Tahnee's initial instinct is with
colour, although storytelling plays a very important role. Her paintings, done
mainly onto large canvases, depict strange and ambiguous stories wthin
apocalyptic, surreal landscapes.
Jo Seong Hee
This project is placed in the context of artistic urban photography as well as night
photography. Urban photography is as old as photography itself, but an artistic
use of this subject was pioneered by Alfred Stieglitz, in the early 1900s. He
proved that cityscape scan have an aesthetic value. Today, new types of media,
such as video, pose a challenge to architectural photography.
Jo's work aims to show that photography competes successfully with these media,
as it is possible to create 'new', imaginary landscapes through a combination
of shots. This project is an experiment to apply the technique of collage and
produce an imaginary' panorama' of high-rise buildings and other urban features
seen by night. The pictures each consist of three images tightly juxtaposed in
one frame. For Jo's idea of a panoramic impression furnished by triple images
She relied on McLuhan's philosophy regarding the extension of vision. By
joining images, you transcend the need to read sequences sequentially. Hilliard
and Scott McFarland also 'compressed' time into single images. The result
combines elements of collage and voyeurism.
Mark Morris
Mark‘s work is inspired by the exploration of space around and within a
sculpture to create a subtle tension. The use of ceramic and Perspex came from
the desire to bring together the historically evocative with the modern. These
sculptures although all based around an angular enclosed starting point are
made up of strong individual components that vie for recognition. The circle
sits in our subconscious as a strong reminder of all that affects our daily
lives. This balanced symbol touches us all; from the understanding of our earth
and the movement in the cosmos, through to its iconic use in pagan religion
such as the ancient stone circles of Stonehenge
through to modern day branding. The counter balance to this iconic symbol is
the line/slice, which opens up the area of re-interpretation via the process of
re-assembly to give the sculpture a fresh presence. Mark uses Perspex from the
first cut in the wet clay to look at the dynamics taking place in the piece,
the Perspex opens up what was solid and creates the floating effect within the
piece. This is the enjoyable and natural part of the creative process. There is
then the skilled part of making that first natural act work in the finished
piece via the reworking of the lines and getting the texture of the surface to
come to the fore as that becomes a crucial part in the final resolution of the
sculpture.
Tsendpurev Tsegmid
Tsendpurev Tsegmid is a Mongolian artist living in the UK, who
investigates issues of heritage and identity from the perspective of her own
cultural re-location. Originally trained in the discipline of traditional
Mongolian painting, Tsendpurev now works in a contemporary art context. She
uses photography and performance, combining both practices in such a way that
her work is difficult to categorise. In some cases the camera simply documents
a performance; in others the performative event is staged in order to construct
a photograph as the final artwork. Tsendpurev uses clothing and costume to take
on different identities and to explore the issue of geographical and cultural
displacement. In her ongoing project Packing/Unpacking, Tsendpurev wears her
mother's 'deel' (traditional embroidered garment) in the context of both
Mongolian and Yorkshire landscapes. Alhough
geographically separated from her family living thousands of miles away, she is
tied by her feelings of love and kinship. This is expressed by wearing her
mother's clothing (like an 'embrace') or dressing in a police uniform as a
reference to her father's professional life, during the Communist regime of his
country. The camera provides a way of examining these acts of identification
and emulation, and the multiple meanings that are produced once they are framed
within a Western context.
Familial narratives are also woven into a research project that investigates
the guarding of frontiers and the preservation of territories. Tsendpurev
examines the meaning of her country's borders from the perspective of one who
has flown over and beyond them. Living in a globalised culture but still
maintaining an attachment to her homeland, she questions the use of the term
'nomad' for the millions of people around the world who live in voluntary exile
rather than following the patterns and paths inscribed by previous generations.
Assuming an alter ego for the series Queen, Tsendpurev displays the sense of
pride located in her Mongolian heritage. The warlike prowesses of the country's
leaders, and the history of the Mongol Empire, provide a focus for national
feeling. However, there is also a sense of irony in the mode of dressing up
used to create The Queen. The clothing is purchased from shops in Mongolia and the UK, produced by multinational
retail companies in a global industry that indiscriminately fuses styles and
fashions. From this available mix Tsendpurev chooses to create the identity of
a female warrior leader, as a re-enactment of ancestral power and authority.
The Queen adopts ceremonial poses using the sword as her most potent accessory.
However, she also reveals a self-reflective uncertainty as she faces the
camera. Queen has been performed in different locations, including the Royal Armouries
Museum in Leeds,
where it was an intervention in the museum's space of preservation, raising
contemporary issues of conflicting identity.
Jamie Durling
Jamie's work is created in one of two mindsets each of which has a drastic
effect on the final piece. Often, Jamie will spend a lot of time developing a
coherent conceptual framework which will often originate from an idea taken
from the things that influence him as an artist; films, paintings, books or
everyday occurrences in which Jamie have played a part or witnessed. These
ideas will then be researched and developed over time and often culminate in a
single photo shoot which will be overseen with meticulous attention to detail,
adding/removing objects from the frame which are desirable/unwanted. These are
more often than not narrative scenes which require people to 'act out' certain
parts in order for Jamie to achieve the desired result. The other side to
Jamie's work is rather more spontaneous, and involves very little thought and
planning. The images shown here from Jamie's book 'One Hundred Colour
Photographs' were all shot in this way, eliminating the gestation period of a
concept and 'taking' whatever it is that Jamie sees in the moment for what it
is, without any alteration to the frame and its content, simply a moment.