EXTERIORITY / 13/09/10 - 24/10/10
JAMES IRELAND / LITTLEWHITEHEAD / VICTORIA RANCE /
DAVID RICKARD / DOUGLAS WHITE
Exhibition runs: 13th September to 24th October
Viewing: by appointment
Location: A private residence in St. John's Wood
Outdoor sculpture has often lagged behind trends in art history and indeed many sculptors are still working in stale formalist modes. Focusing on outdoor sculpture liberated from the constraints of tradition, Exteriority presents work that has pushed into a more conceptual, contemporary realm.
David Rickard’s work is rooted in a playful but considered subversion of the conventional use of materials and objects. He is keen to create works that respond to specific environments and that enhance or disrupt our experience. Characteristically Rickard’s processes follow a logic which incorporates an element of chance or of natural force into the finished work. Such processes and the resulting works are far removed from notions of formal composition. Rickard’s Untitled, a metal chair that has been painstakingly coated in 24ct gold, has lead sheets stacked on it until the amassed ‘dead weight’ causes collapse. This collapse removes the functionality of the chair rendering it pointless. With this process Rickard echoes the futility of alchemy: lead can be transformed into gold but the cost of this transformation far outweighs the value of the gold created.
From a distance Douglas White’s palm tree appears almost as any other, its form suggesting a living creation of nature. Skillfully worked into windswept fronds that sprout from a stout yet flexible trunk, on closer inspection the true quality of the material is revealed. The remains of discarded car tires, worn from countless journeys, are reconfigured and given a new representative status as a palm. In addition to sections of car tire, basket balls, plastic and metal, his concern for the discarded is not limited to the man made. Other works have stemmed from roots, trunks and branches of decaying and partially destroyed trees. Through a process of re-contextualisation, reconfiguration and re-conceptualisation he manipulates material to form sculptures that give new meaning to their component parts.
Victoria Rance engages with notions of self, of masquerade and of imprisonment. These ideas are combined with an interest in the interplay between art and the functional to create spaces for humans to inhabit 'either physically or imaginatively'. As a screen of steel flowers Space for a Woman II can be construed from two perspectives, as a protective shelter and as an oppressive cage. The outward facing flowers further complicate our understanding and as always with Rance’s work ambiguity is key. The seemingly medieval appearance of this structure nods to tradition. Not only does tradition help to maintain the inherent repression of women in many cultures, but combined with nostalgia often encroaches on the freedom of human life.
James Ireland employs elements of the formal conventions of minimalism but combines them with the language of landscape painting to form an essentially new hybridised practice. Ireland’s work is semiotic; that is to say that he has re-interpreted the traditional elements of landscape painting as minimalist three-dimensional signs. His work questions the traditional notions of the formal and of the representation of landscapes in art history. In doing so, he aptly demonstrates that one can create an exciting contemporary work by reinterpreting a traditional subject and style rather than simply repeating it faithfully.
Glasgow-based littlewhitehead (Craig Little and Blake Whitehead) aim to attack the comfort of received ideas by realising the traumatic sights that are so routinely represented by the media and entertainment industries as hyper-real sculptures. The immediacy of the experience is intended to ‘beat you up visually’, to re-instate the horror of the first hand experience that has been pacified in contemporary life.
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Exteriority: James Ireland / littlewhitehead / Victoria Rance / David Rickard / Douglas White
Exhibition runs: 13th September to 24th October 2010
Location: A private residence in St. John's Wood
Viewing: by appointment only
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David Rickard is a graduate of Auckland School of Architecture (BA), Brera Accademia di Belle Arti di Milano (BA) and Central Saint Martins (MA). Solo exhibitions include Test Flights, Economist Plaza, London (2010), Mitosis, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Treviso, Italy (2009), Exhaust 19-06-08, Goethe-Institut, London (2008) and Dilate, Trolley Gallery, London (2007). Group shows include Appetite for Destruction, NEST, The Hague (2010), David Rickard/Romeu Goncalves, The Mews Project Space, London (2010), The Jerwood Sculpture Prize, The Jerwood Space, London (2005), Glocal, XXL Gallery, Sofia (2000), Die Teile und Das Ganze, Alten Windum, Archenkirch, Austria (2000) and State House, Art Space, Auckland (1997).
Douglas White is a graduate of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (BA) and the Royal College of Art (MA). Solo exhibitions include Masquerade, Malta Contemporary Art, Valletta (2009), Elephant Totem Song, Paradise Row, London (2009), Hartrot, Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam (2008) and Black Palm, Gallerie Nuke, Paris (2007). Group shows include New Symphony, Simon Oldfield Gallery, London (2010), Natural Wonders: New Art From London, BAIBAKOV Art Projects, Moscow (2009), Nathaniel Rackowe and Douglas White, The Russian Club Gallery, London (2008), Truths, Initial Access, Wolverhampton (2007), Anticipation, One One One, London (2007) and the Jerwood Sculpture Prize, Jerwood Space, London (2005).
Victoria Rance is a graduate of the Newcastle Upon Tyne University (BA) and Kingston University (MA). Solo exhibitions include Standpoint Gallery, London (2004) and Spire, The Economist Plaza, London (2000). Group shows include Invisible, Lucy Bell Gallery, London (2010), Canakkale Biennial, Turkey (2010), Eastern Approaches, Hatfield House, Hertfordshire (2009), Stand Alone, Cello Factory, London (2009), Deep Inspiration, Jerwood Space, London (2007), New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury (2005), Yokohama International Art Exhibition, Yokohama, Japan (2003), Cass Sculpture Foundation, Goodwood, West Sussex (2000), Noordbrabandt Museum, Hertogenbosch, Holland (2000) and Labour of Love, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany (1999). The artist is recipient of the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award (2003).
James Ireland is a graduate of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (BA). Solo exhibitions include The difference between truth and honesty, f a projects, London (2007), You Mistake My Horror For Love, Economist Plaza, London (2007), This Is a Test, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham (2005) and All of the Known Universe, Spike Island, Bristol (2003). Group shows include Peace and Agriculture, Haunch of Venison, Berlin (2008), Material Presence, 176, London (2008), Goggel pa jorden, Galerie Charlotte Lund (2008), Super-Sampling Anti-Aliased, Dreizehnzwei, Vienna (2007), ArtFutures, Bloomberg Space, London (2007), Scape, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2005), Species of Spaces, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London (2002) and Unscene, Gasworks, London (2002).
littlewhitehead are artists Craig Little and Blake Whitehead, both graduates of Glasgow School of Art (BA). Solo exhibitions include Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland (2010), Playing Dog, Gimpel Fils, London (2009) and So Many Fellows Find Themselves, K Gallery, Milan (2009). Group shows include Newspeak: British Art Now, Saatchi Gallery, London (2010) and The Hermitage, St Petersburg (2009), Tales That Witness Madness, Elevator Gallery, London (2009), Grey Matter, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (2009) and Bloomberg New Contemporaries, A Foundation, London (2008).