Gallery


The gallery is a collaboration between multifaceted music/art hub FORT, and artist/curator Rob Leech to bring a program of cutting-edge art installations to previously unused open spaces within their historical four story Georgian property. To be added to the gallery mailing list and keep up to date with current exhibitions at  FORT, please click here

Current Exhibition:



08/02/2013 - 14/04/2013
Private View: Thursday 7th February 2013
RSVP to gallery@thefort.info

An exhibition exploring contemporary consciousness

 “(…) a man is always a teller of tales, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story.  But you have to choose: live or tell.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“All the information I have about myself is from forged documents.”  ― Vladimir Nabokov, Despair
  
Alana Lake (Curator) was born in Britain in 1981. She is an artist, curator and founder of Our Dark Chamber.  Lake graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2009.  Lake has an international exhibitions record showing in London, Milan, Turin, Helsinki and Zurich. 
 Lake works predominately with photography and video, but extends into sculpture, text and installation and has been described by writer and theorist David Evans as being ‘after Tillmans’.  

 Aza Shade was born in 1989 in USSR, raised in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and moved to London in 2006.  Shade is a multidisciplinary artist having graduated from Central Saint Martins in Moving Image, working predominately but not exclusively with film, video and photography.  Shade’s work will be on show at this-years Venice Biennale in the Central Asian Pavilion.
 You could go so far as to say that Shade contributes to defining current trends in contemporary youth culture; working closely with Vice Magazine – Aza Shade is also lead singer of the experimental band Manflu.

 Loulou and Kiki Picasso make up the small but powerful art collective Bazooka, known most notoriously for their editorial contribution to the French left-wing newspaper Libération.

Charlie Billingham was born in  the UK in 1984 and currently lives and works in London. He studied Fine Art and History of Art at Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh (2003-08) later undertaking post-graduate study at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2010-13).  Billinghams  first solo exhibition was with Marcelle Joseph Projects in November 2012 and his next will be with Ceri Hand Gallery in November 2013.  Billingham has exhibited with the Aubin Gallery, New End Art Gallery, The Royal Academy of Arts, R O O M and The Royal Scottish Academy.


Dominic from Luton (born Dominic Thomas Allan, Luton 1977) gives life eternal to taxidermed rats in bespoke sleeping bags (with AA Duracell’s), performs live in burnt-out wheelchairs as his own Father as Margaret ‘Milk Snatcher’ Thatcher complete with film set wigs, makes Union Jack sculpture out of chicken and chip boxes, en-masse, then destroys them inviting his Battersea dogs home Staffordshire bull terrier to join in, hand embroiders ‘WANKERS’ onto confectionary sweet bags, constructs edible heartthrob wreaths for the living and paints ‘D O M I N I C F R O M LU T O N’ onto Great Yarmouth piers out of season, bereft forever, of human activity.
Recent / current projects and awards include, 'Polemically Small' curated by Edward Lucie Smith at Charlie Smith, London 2012, 'Shoes Off If You Love Luton!' at Galleri Skilti (solo), Reykjavik, Iceland 2012, Arts Council England, Research and Development Award (individual) 2013, 'London Utd' (curated) with Gavin Turk, Laura White, Peter lamb and Dominic from Luton, Kling & Bang, Reykjavik, Iceland 2013.

James Unsworth was born in Liverpool in 1979. He studied at Winchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. He received his MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 2006.  His work is in numerous collections, including public collections such as the Walker Art Gallery (National Museums Liverpool), the Royal College of Art and the UBS Art Collection.
 Unsworth has earned a reputation for his wide-ranging practice that includes printmaking, drawing, photography and performance.  He has held exhibitions at public and private institutions including the largest survey of his work so far at Raw Art, Tel-Aviv, Israel in 2011, in 2012 he directed his first performance; Shitheads/Ninja Turtle Sex Museum at Südpol, Luzern, Switzerland, his first solo exhibition at a Swiss institution. He has been included in exhibitions at Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, USA, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada and the Walker Art Gallery (National Museums Liverpool), Liverpool, UK.
                              
Rckay Rax is a artist and performer currently living and working in London; a true testament to the contemporary avant-garde pushing the boundaries of what may be considered socially acceptable or palatable.  Rckay Rax has undergone several name changes and continues to do so, questioning what a name and identity might actually mean or signify to an artist and their role as performer.  




Past:

#10
Caline Aoun  Sam Belinfante  Minae Kim   Julian King
06/12/2012 - 01/02/2013



Minae Kim, 997 inches restraint, Tape on handrail, 2012


Sam Belinfante, Penumbra, HD video, separated sound, 2011
&
Minae Kim, 997 inches restraint, Tape on handrail, 2012


Sam Belinfante, Penumbra, HD video, separated sound, 2011


Minae Kim, 997 inches restraint, Tape on handrail, 2012
&
Caline Aoun, Acoustic tiles, Acrylic print on wall, 2012

 Caline Aoun, Acoustic tiles, Acrylic print on wall, 2012



 Caline Aoun, Acoustic tiles, Acrylic print on wall, 2012

Julian King, Bandits, Wood, paint, rubber boot, 2012








Guy Bourner - Happy Medium
22/07/2012 - 01/12/2012

 I first met Guy at the very beginning of our undergraduate course in Fine Art at Bath Spa. Working in the same studio, we quickly got talking and grew to be good friends - drawn together by a mutual taste for bold, punchy colour, paint in all its gloopy glory,  Arte Povera, the so-called Minimalists, Martin Creed, Jim Lambie, and what might now be seen as a guilty pleasure: 90’s process painting.
 
Naturally, I became a great admirer of Guy’s work, and it gives me great pleasure to present Happy Medium, his first solo exhibition in London.
 
Along with a poem dedicated to paint – a material which Guy unashamedly celebrates throughout his work – the exhibition features new (no more than a few weeks old) paintings from three bodies of work. They include recent Container Paintings that are made by filling thin, rectangular glass containers with household paint, and Cling Film works, in which generously painted monochromes are wrapped in cling film, in a way you might do your sandwiches in preparation for a long journey. In both series, paint is still visibly wet. It is vulnerable, and in constant flux; the painting's destiny handed over by the artist and given to the world.


Almost in opposition are Guy’s incredibly still Velvet Paintings, which sit like monuments to the forgotten and unobserved. Given a new life, re-created spills and drips that found their way on to the artists floor sit behind glass on rich velvet, reminding the viewer of precious stones. 

- Rob Leech




Paint Poem #3, Household gloss on canvas, 2012
Suddenly Lacklustre and Desperately Exhausted, Household gloss in glass, 2012

Painted Date: 12/7/12, Dry By Date: 070/7/13, 2012, Household acrylic on plastazote wrapped in cling-film, 2012

Untitled, Household acrylic, plastazote, cling film, paintbrushes, plastic cups in refrigerator, 2012


Painted Date: 18/07/12, Dry By Date: 2210/13, Household acrylic on plastazote wrapped in cling-film, 2012

Still Life Series # 17,Household acrylic and gloss on velvet,2012
&
Still Life Series # 4, Household acrylic and gloss on velvet, 2011


Painted Date: 7/7/12, Dry By Date: 07/07/13, Household acrylic on plastazote wrapped in cling-film, 2012



Previous:

Poltergeist

The show takes its inspiration from the concept of short unwanted manifestations in physical and digital realm typical of our contemporary culture. Appearance and disappearance, animated objects and images become ephemeral presences calling for attention whilst modifying our ways of seeing and perceiving. Used in communication techniques as powerful marketing tool to influence the subconscious and overpresent in the digital world - as pop-up and banners - subliminal inputs and undesired elements become contemporary art tools of experimentation to reveal mysterious ideas and new representations of reality. Short time of experience and the condemnation to expire are used as inspiration to consider alternative modes of expression and think about current modes of creation and conservation. Looking at materiality and time as in Katherine Hayles definition of it as a dance between the medium’s physical characteristics and the work’s signifying strategies; each artwork and its interpretation becomes contingent, provisional, and debatable and therefore considered more of a conxtual event than a pre-existing object.
Taking the space of FORT as a point of departure, the artists invited engage with it whilst contributing through unexpected events, hidden visions and imperceptible structures to reflect about materiality, revelation, duration and evanescence.



Attilia Fattori Franchini is an independent curator based in London. FF holds a BA in Economic for Arts, Culture and Communications from Bocconi University, Milan, Italy and a PGD in Contemporary Art History from Goldsmiths College, London. 


She is co-founder of the online gallery bubblebyte.org. Her practice concentrates on the dialogue between digital and physical space reflecting on their language and aesthetics. Recent projects include The Function of the Oblique, Son Gallery / Nor Format Gallery, London, April, 2012 Pascual Sisto solo show, Seventeen Gallery London, 2012, PRIMO ANNIVERSARIO, The Sunday Painter, London, 2012, Frieze Special Projects, 2011- Episode 4: From Frieze Art Fair, This is LuckyPDF TV, My Friend Speak HTML, Guest Curator, Nrmal Festival, Mexico, March 2011, Since Tomorrow, EB&Flow Gallery, London, 2011. 


Mario Athanasiou (b.1980 Athens, Greece) lives and works in London. He was originally trained as a composer and this year completed an MA in Studio Composition at Goldsmiths College. His works tend to explore how we perceive reality through sound and how we can use technology to manipulate, distort and transform that reality.

Rob Chavasse (b.1984, UK) lives and works in London. He holds a BA in Fine Art from University of West of England. Through site-conditioned works, Chavasse creates experiential situation, investigating the contradictions
of reference vs. experience. Using a wide range of media, Chavasse’s practice is concerned by the notion of space, and how we perceive it.

Yuri Pattison (b.1987 Dublin, Ireland) lives and works in London.  He is member of LuckyPDF and Off Modern Collectives and his interests lie within architecture and materiality, while focusing on space and the process of creating. Mastering a variety of media as video, animation and photography his work stresses digital communications language and tools. Yuri’s installations are a moving escape where time and its constant flux is represented and the access to a virtual past invades the knowledge of an expendable present.

Hannah Perry {b. 1984, Chester, UK} lives and works in London. She works in video collage and installation. She will be part of Zabludowicz Collection Invites series in March and recently performed as part of Lucky PDF’s residency at the 2011 Frieze Art Fair. Hannah has presented work at A Foundation, Liverpool, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea and Tate Britain, London.
Samara Scott (b.1985, UK) lives and works in London. She recently completed an MA in Communications Art and Design at The Royal College of Art, London. Her practice uses romantic urges to make glossy hyper-real objects, a pick n mix of continental topicality, and a surreal mish-mash of pastel symbols. The art objects can also be digested from design perspectives. Backgrounds double as foregrounds – a blind operates as both a screen and a sculpture. Sculptures then become props in surreal narratives.

Samara Scott (b.1985, UK) lives and works in London. She recently completed an MA in Communications Art and Design at The Royal College of Art, London. Her practice uses romantic urges to make glossy hyper-real objects, a pick n mix of continental topicality, and a surreal mish-mash of pastel symbols. The art objects can also be digested from design perspectives. Backgrounds double as foregrounds – a blind operates as both a screen and a sculpture. Sculptures then become props in surreal narratives.

Tim Steer (b.1983, UK) lives and works in London. He is currently completing an MA in Sculpture at The Royal College of Art. His practice revolves around the concept of materiality and its definition in digital culture. Through, video, writing, animated and sculptural creation Steer’s work activates sensations and memories while representing fluid images belonging to the digital realm.

Oliver Sutherland (b. 1985, UK) lives and works in London. He is currently studying an MA in Sculpture at The Royal College of Art. Working across a range of media his practice takes influence from a variety of sources including science, belief systems and fiction, culminating in critical and subversive observations of serious and often humourless situations. Sutherland’s practice examines the more esoteric language of digital media and digital processes, reverting it to create highly visual hybridised artworks.


Samara Scott, New Descending the Stairs
fashion garments, hand sanitisers, spirits
dimension variable,
2012

Hannah Perry, Kiss Me, Video loop, monitors, acrylic, print on lightbox paper
dimensions variable, 2012


Rob Chavasse, عربية‎ (sky), 2012, framed giclee print on archival paper
210 x 297mm




Tim Steer, Untitled, single channel video installation, dimensions variable, 2012




Yuri Pattinson, newnorm.alDuraClear prints, digital signage monitor, digital video, glass, 80 x 49 x 14 cm approx / dimensions variable, 2012 



Mario Athanasiou, A Black Hole Frozen In Time, audio loop, glass, wood, speaker, stereo amplifier, audio player, 100 cm x 28cm x 28cm2012









Flamingo Hill
A Rob Eagle Solo Show
02/03/2012 - 27/04/2012

 
Rob Eagle completed an MA in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in 2009. He lives and works in London.  Recent shows include: Cheap Flights, FORT, London, Eagle & Eken, Transition Gallery, London, Of the Land (curated by Rob Eagle), Vulpes Vulpes, Riff-Raff , Q, London; Parade, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth.


Flamingo Hill, 2012


Falling form trees, 2012


Falling from trees, 2012 (detail)

I'm just gonna, 2012


Sorrow and Happiness, 2011


Oh She's Cute, 2012

Talk to me, 2012





IN HOUSE
A Exhibition of Fortress Residents and Associates
03/02/2012 - 24/02/2012

For over a year now, we at FORT have been running a series of contemporary art exhibitions featuring artists including James Howard, Martin
Creed, Jack Newling and Philip Newcombe in the open spaces of the historic Fortress Recording Studios, alongside the day to day musical workings of the space.

The residents and their associates have been invaded by the exhibitions and now its time for them to show what they can do.

So from Thursday 2nd February 2012, FORT presents IN HOUSE – an invitation to the people of Fortress Studios to exhibit samples of their own creative output. This will include lyrics by Mercury Award winner Speech Debelle, painting by Simon Milner of Is Tropical, new sleeve art from Tim Godwin of Belleruche, a visual art/sound collaborative project by Toby Bricheno and Stella Whalley and a canvas by legendary Fortress resident Merv

For two decades a can-and-will-do attitude at Fortress has permeated throughout the building – from George Clinton to Coldplay, authentic eccentrics rub shoulders with celebrated musicians. It could be The Vaccines rehearsing or Eddie Izzard Djing, Primal Scream playing in the basement. There is always a story, and the building’s history continues to be created by the residents – so come and witness part of it for yourself.




SOCIAL SPACE
Robert Rush   David Cyrus Smith   David Treloar   David Ben White
Curated by Emma Jamieson
11/11/11 - 23/12/11

 “Social space is not a thing among other things, nor a product among other products: rather, it subsumes things produced and encompasses their interrelationships in their coexistence and simultaneity—their (relative) order and/or (relative) disorder”

Here within the ‘social space’ of the gallery, staircase and roof terrace, we give the room to four artists whose works run along a similar thread, in that they each deal with and draw from architecture, space, line and colour. The works are a product of playing and conversing with one another. The idea is that they have the gallery space as the seed to produce work from, and through their similarities and differences they here produce a scene, an outcome of their interaction with such social space unique to the FORT gallery.

“Every social space is the outcome of a process with any aspects and many contributing currents, signifying and non-signifying, perceived and directly experienced, practical and theoretical. In short, every social space has a history, one invariably grounded in nature, in natural conditions that are at once primordial and unique in the sense that they are always and everywhere endowed with specific characteristics (site, climate, etc)”

Exhibition curated by Emma Jamieson, Director,  Marksman Gallery 

Robert Rush (b Guildford, 1978) graduated from the Royal Academy Schools, London in 2006. Since then he has been included in Bloomburg New Contemporaries, The Jerwood Contemporary Painters and The John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize, along with a number of other self-initiated group shows and collaborations. He currently lives and works in London.

David Smith (b.1972) graduated from The Royal Academy Schools in 1999. Recent solos exhibitions include S.T.O.R.A.G.E- The Agency Gallery, London. and Diamonds on my windscreen- Keith Talent Gallery, London. He recently completed the Abbey Fellowship in painting at The British School at Rome. http://davidcyrussmith.blogspot.com/

David Treloar (b. London 1976) graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in London in 2006. Recent exhibitions include Fold, pop up show, London and Jafre, pop up show, London. http://davidtreloar.blogspot.com//

David Ben White (b London in1965)  graduated from his MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London in September 2011. He is currently showing in Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Recent solo shows include Painting Pavilion, (And/Or Gallery), London and The Atom Age Parts 1 & 2, Studio 1.1, London. http://www.davidbenwhite.com/












#4
Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom  Loz Chalk   Rhys Coren    Jack Newling   Laura Wilson
19/08/11 - 30/10/11

From telephones, pint glasses, coffee cups and football shirts to fly-posters, basic computer graphics and the language of product design, five London-based artists draw on the unassuming objects and materials of everyday modern living. Their shared interests go beyond injecting the over-familiar with something new or strange. Using simple gestures, action, sculpture and print, their works carry pathos and poetry.

Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom (b.1984, London) Graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2008. Previous Exhibitions Include: Restrike, Poppy Sebire Gallery, London, 2011; Peacock Trousers, Josh Lilly Gallery, London, 2011; Misguided Warrior, Squid & Tabernacle, London, 2010 (solo); This is England, Aubin Gallery, London, 2010; Like Love – Parts One & Two and Action, The Bluecoat, Liverpool, 2010; Backwash, Primo Alonso Gallery, London, 2009 (solo) www.boakye-yiadom.com

Loz Chalk (b. Born 1983, Folkestone, Kent) Graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2011. Recent Exhibitions Include: Premiums, Sackler Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2010; PRIMER-UWE/Spike Fellows Show, Spike Island, Bristol, 2008; The Wrong Place, The Old Pro Cathedral, Bristol, 2007; Build Me A Monument, 37 Jamaica Street, Bristol, 2007; Art Vaults, Southampton, 2007. http://www.laurencechalk.co.uk/

Rhys Coren (b.1983, Plymouth) Graduated from the University of West England in 2005. Recent exhibitions include: The Second Most Popular, BAM BAM BAM, Wolstenholme, Liverpool, 2011 (solo); my friend speak HTML, NRMAL FESTIVAL, Monterrey, Mexico, 2011; ICML PRSNT... Duck Hunt, Rhubaba, Edinburgh, 2011; Something is Coming, Godspeeeeed Gallery, Richmond, VA, USA, 2010; Techno-Thriller, The Newbridge Project, Newcastle, 2010; VIDEO PROGETTO, Grand Union, Birmingham UK and 26CC, Rome, Italy, 2010;
Paintings From England & American, CRISP, London, 2010; After Newsround, Old Shoreditch Station, Jaguar Shoes, London, 2009 (solo). www.rhyscoren.co.uk  

Jack Newling (b.1983, Nottingham) Graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2009. Recent exhibitions include: Then again, SPACE, London, 2011 (solo); With and without painting, Max Wigram galley. London, 2011; Friendships of the peoples, Simon Oldfield. London, 2011; Jerwood Contemporary Painters, Jerwood Space. London, 2010; Pleasure ground, Lokaal 01, Breda, Netherlands, 2010; TAG from 3TO36: New London Painting, Brown. London, 2010; Bloomberg new contemporaries, Cornerhouse, Manchester, Club row London, 2009. www.jacknewling.com

Laura Wilson (b. 1983) graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2006. Selected exhibitions include; Header Stretcher Soldier Sailor Shiner Rowlock, Vitrine Gallery, London, 2011; Horse of a different colour, Siobhan Davies Studios, London, 2010; Preludes and Nocturnes, Dalston New Library, London 2010; Field Broadcast as part of Wysing Contemporary, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, 2010; Late at Tate, Tate Britain, 2009; Endgames, Truck, Canada 2007; Ename Actueel 2007, Foundation, Belgium, 2007. www.laurawilson.me 

  

 Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom, Tum Tum Telephone, Video Loop, 2011


Loz Chalk, Pint Glass, Pint glass, acrylic sheet, Sellotap; wooden plinth, 2011

(left to right) Rhys Coren, LXXXVIII, animated GIF, 2011
Rhys Coren, Pars, Archival print, 2011




 Jack Newling, Friends and family, Silkscreen on cardboard, 2011



Laura Wilson, Tour, Paper, ink, wall-paper paste, 2011






THE ONE SHOW
Adam Burton  Martin Creed  Philip Newcombe  Robert Pratt  Jesse Wine
05/05/11 - 02/07/11


As the third in the series of FORT's recently established exhibition program, THE ONE SHOW brings together five London based artists whose subtle use of humor and genuine, sometimes highly personal, gesture celebrates the more absurdly ironic encounters of everyday life. THE ONE SHOW seeks to establish a simple common ground between the five artists, each of whom offer up somewhat whimsical reflections as well as more direct recordings of the kind of fleeting, often inconsequential, moments we all experience in our lives, whether knowingly or not.

Curated by Rob Eagle and Rob Leech, THE ONE SHOW will encompass a series of incidental encounters with work in video, photography and print as well as more unconventional media (such as a gobstopper and the sound of Martin Creed having a chuckle) that will reflect the character and dynamics of FORT's exhibition spaces.

Adam Burton (b.1982) completed his MFA at Bath Spa UC in 2007. Recent exhibitions include: We Interventions, Walcot Chapel, Fringe Arts, Bath, 2010; Acceptable Answers & Iran War, Total Kunst, Edinburgh, 2010; Free On, Vulpes Vulpes, London, 2010; Use & Mention, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London, 2010; Pan-demonium, AC Institute, New York, 2009. www.adamburton.com

Matin Creed (b. 1968) graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1990. He won the Turner Prize in 2001. Recent exhibitions include: Paintings, Johnen Galerie, Berlin, 2011, Martin Creed, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, 2011, Mothers, Hauser & Wirth, London, 2011, Numbers, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, 2010. www.martincreed.com

Philip Newcombe (b. 1970) completed his MFA at the University of Reading in 2003. Recent exhibitions include: BigMinis: Fetishes of Crises, CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux, 2010-11; You've got a face like a sack full of spuds falling to the floor, performance at The International Rotterdam Film Festival, 2011; Black Clouds and Big Love, Eleven Howland, London (solo), 2010; Sphinx, Stuart Shave / Modern Art, London, 2008;  New York Art Book Fair, with Silverman gallery, San Francisco, 2008; Legende, Domain de Chamarande, curated by Alexis Vaillant, Paris, 2008. www.philipnewcombe.co.uk

Robert Pratt (b. 1984)  graduated from the Royal academy schools in 2009. Recent exhibitions include: GAZING GLAZING GLAZED, The Cello Factory, London, 2011, The Extension, Vilma Gold, London, 2011; Bendy Straws and Beached Whales, And/Or, London, 2010; Everyday Altered, Primo Alonso, London, 2009

Jesse Wine (b. 1983)  graduated from the Royal Collage in 2010. Recent exhibitions include: Cult of the Ruin, University of California Irvine, California, 2011; every portrait a self portrait, kinda like every pizza a masterpizza, Franklin Parrach Gallery, New York, 2010; Your Life Needs it, Bow, London, 2010, Nowhere in Peculiar, Five Hundred Dollars, London, 2010, LondonLola, Kunstverein Familie Montez, Frankfurt, 2010; Bold Tendencies III, Hannah Barry Gallery, London, 2009. www.jessewine.com







Martin Creed, Work No.916, Boxes, 2008


Rob Pratt, Russia, 
2011, 


National Geographic World Classic Map and Dart.

&
Rob Pratt, Scratch , 2010, Under Coat Plaster.


Rob Pratt, Russia, 
2011, 
National Geographic World Classic Map and Dart.






Rob Pratt, Russia, 
2011, 
National Geographic World Classic Map and Dart (money shot)





Robert Pratt, Red Water
2011 ,
Video loop.







Martin Creed, Work no. 4122005 



Jesse Wine, Big Travel Problems

 2011, 

Inkjet on banner.





Phillip Newcombe, Planet Heavy Shit, Gobstopper sucked whilst thinking about heavy shit, 2010





Adam Burton, No Titles (detail), Mixed media, 2008









Jesse Wine, It's me this, 2011, Video loop






 

THE FORT PAINTING SHOW
Chris Baker   Guy Bourner   Benjamin Senior   Gavin Toye   William Stein
25/03/11 - 06/04/11

Irrationality, fantasy and wit appear alongside serious art historical engagement in a show of work by five London-based painters. The artists share an unashamed fascination for paint, and its ability to balance links to imaginary, interior worlds and external culture, from art to pop. The Fort Painting Show presents an optimistic contemporary sensibility that has no time for pastiche.


Chris Baker offers a multitude of references to the history of representation through paint, via optical puns, nods to popular culture and pleasure in the power of the simple motif. Baker graduated in 2010 from the Royal Academy of Art. Shows in 2010 included ‘New Contemporary Art: Part 1’, George and Jorgen, London, ‘Modern Love’, Simon Oldfield Gallery, London and ‘Wife Drawing’, 38b Peckham Rye, London. www.chrisbakerart.com

In Guy Bourner’s work, big themes like death and breathing are cased in plastic boxes of perfect paint, like models of paintings. The works change as the paint dries, drawing on a genuine sense of loss over time, while a glossy immediacy characterises his images. Guy Bourner graduated from Bath Spa University in 2005. He has recently shown at Crate Gallery, London, 2010, and featured in ‘The Painting Room’, Transition Gallery, London, 2008. www.guybourner.com

Benjamin Senior’s wry paintings draw on 1920s and 30s stylization and explore the human form; often figures involved in exercise. A perverse tone explores nature vs artificiality, while his imagery is always put under pressure by the weight he gives to pattern. Senior graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2010. Exhibitions in 2010 include ‘The Future Can Wait’, Shoreditch Town Hall, London, ‘Polemically Small’, Charlie Smith London, and the 2010 Studio Voltaire Members Exhibition, selected by Jennifer Higgie and Rebecca Warren, London. www.benjaminsenior.com

William Stein expresses the desire to find somewhere through his paintings where rationality has been "overwhelmed", that is more touching. His quiet, intense works echo early abstraction with a real elevation of the paintings’ materiality. Stein graduated in 2009 with an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art. He was selected to appear in the Marmite painting prize in 2010 and 2011. He has had solo exhibitions at Studio 1.1, London, and Crimes Town, London, and recent group shows include ‘State of the Newly Incarnate Soul’, Hidde van Seggelen Gallery, London, 2010 and ‘No Soul For Sale’, Tate Modern, London, 2010. www.wmstein.com

In Gavin Toye’s energetic work there are poetic, disruptive links drawn between the painted form and what it might represent. He draws on an exuberant array of references from art history and contemporary culture with a deadpan, painterly cleverness. Toye graduates from the Royal College of Art in 2011. He co-founded Crimes Town Gallery, London, 2007-10 and recently appeared in ‘Fade Away’, Transition Gallery, London, 2011. http://www.gavtoye.blogspot.com/


 Chris Baker, Sausages, Oil on Canvas, 2011


Guy Bourner, Holidays, Household gloss in plastic container, 2011


Benjamin Senior, Diamond Girl, Egg tempera on cotton on board, 2011


Gavin Toye, Bang Bang, Oil, marble dust and ping-pong balls on board, 2011


William Stein, Labourers in the Distance, Oil and pencil on chalk gessoed panel, 2010




CHEAP FLIGHTS
Nicky Carvell   Rob Eagle   James Howard   Rob Leech
25/11/10 - 23/01/11

Nostalgia, banality, unspectacular leisure and sheer pleasure all feature in this show of four young London arists. From gorgeous surface to the dirty underbelly of spam advertising, their variety of complex, intelligent and entertaining approaches look at the interlinked horrors and joys of contemporary realty and the unavoidable consumption of popular culture. Featuring installations by Nicky Carvell and Rob Leech, outdoor sculpture by Rob Eagle, and a video projection by James Howard. 

Nicky Carvell’s work celebrates commercial visuals which may be stylistically outdated, but still retain a powerful presence through their innate dynamism. Working in a Post-Pop climate, she extracts tropes from commercial graphics and encourages them towards formal excess. The work behaves as signs without particular meaning, instead emanating an unutterable sense of boldness and energy. Turning these “Naff Graphics” to face the world in their new guise as artworks, in Carvell’s work the everyday becomes exotic and the familiar fantastic. Nicky Carvell Graduated from the Royal Academy schools in 2009. She lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include: Plastic Culture, Legacies of Pop, The Harris Museum, Preston, UK;This is England (curated by Stuart Semple), Aubin & Wills Gallery London; Terminator (curated by Juan Bolivar)Camberwell Space, London; Modern Love, Simon Oldfield Gallery, London. www.nickycarvell.com

Rob Eagle’s work takes an inquisitive look at the peculiarities of modern British culture, offering an intuitive and often humorous perspective on the real physical world and the people and objects of everyday life. Rob Eagle completed an MA in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in 2009. He lives and works in London.  Recent shows include: Parade, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth; Riff-Raff (Curated by David Southard), Q, London; Of the Land (curated by Rob Eagle), Vulpes Vulpes, London; Eagle & Eken, Transition Gallery, London   www.robeagle.com   

James Howard's work takes the images that pop up on our computer screens and brings them to the forefront. These quasi-adverts lure the audience into a shady world of false products and credit card fraud. According to Howard we are living in the Wild West of the new digital age, with junk email preying on our insecurities and needs. James Howard Graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2007. He lives and works in London. Recent Shows include: Black Money, and Peifen Fine Art - 21 Fleet Street, London; FRESSEN UND GEFRESSEN WERDEN, Peles Empire,London; The Future Can Wait 2010(Curated by Zavier Ellis and Simon Rumley), Charlie Smith, Shoreditch town hall, London;Newspeak: British Art Now (Part Two), Saatchi Gallery, London.www.luckyluckydice.com 


Rob Leech "When you go to an Indian Restaurant there is always a dish that comes out still sizzling. I want that dish, and I don't want the sizzling to stop"Rob Leech Graduated from the Royal Academy schools in 2009. He lives and works in London. Recent shows include: Riff-Raff (Curated by David Southard), Q, London; Claire Price Rob Leech, Crimes Town London; It's all over, Eleven Howland, www.robleech.net

London. 

Accompanying text by Rachel Potts (Click here to view)



Nicky Carvell, The Fall of Chrome, Mixed Media, 2010




Rob Eagle, Fresh Candy, Ink on Plywood, 2010



James Howard, Coin-op Plasma, Digitally printed banner, 2010



Rob Leech, Fizz, Florescent star, hairdryer, extension cable, rawl plug, screw, 2010





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