Ed Clark @ Turner Contemporary, Margate

Ed Clark

Turner Contemporary, Margate

25 May - 1 September 2024

Turner Contemporary presents the first institutional exhibition in Europe dedicated to pioneering artist ED CLARK (1926-2019). The exhibition unites paintings and works on paper from the 1940s to 2000s, including loans from The Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum and Detroit Institute of Arts, many of which have not been seen outside the USA.

Though late to receive international acclaim, Clark’s contributions to contemporary art were significant, notably through his innovative push broom technique and shaped canvases. Today, Ed Clark is recognised as a groundbreaking figure within the New York School of Abstraction.

Born in New Orleans and raised in Chicago, Ed Clark used credits from his G.I. Bill to attend the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago from 1947 to 1951. In 1952, he furthered his studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, where he would return to make work for the rest of his life. Clark’s experiences in the bohemian quarter of Montparnasse and, later, New York’s downtown scene deeply influenced his shift towards abstraction and working on a large scale. In 1956, he adopted the use of a 48-inch push broom to allow him to drive paint across the canvas with great force, a technique known as 'the big sweep' and exemplified in works such as Locomotion 1963. On his return to the US that year, Ed Clark settled in New York, where he co-founded the influential Brata Gallery and created Untitled 1957, a seminal piece in the evolution of shaped painting and a highlight of the exhibition’s section devoted to Clark’s early canvases.

Travel and how a sense of place profoundly influenced Clark’s work are at the heart of the exhibition. In 1971, visiting artist Jack Whitten in Crete proved transformative. As the Mediterranean light inspired a new colour palette, so it motivated him to seek out different lights and atmospheres, including in Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, China and Japan, as well as across the US. This theme is explored in depth throughout the exhibition with works on paper and paintings including Untitled 1970 – an example of his oval-shaped canvases first made in Vétheuil, France – Untitled from Louisiana Series 1978-80 and the dazzling Ife Rose 1974.

Set against the expansive North Sea, Turner Contemporary is uniquely placed to explore how, as one contemporary critic observed, Clark’s canvases registered his “sensitivity to the pigmentation of the earth and the colour of the skies.”

The exhibition concludes with key examples of paintings from the mid-1980s to 2000s, a period when Ed Clark brought new structures to his compositions with sweeping rainbows, tubes, and waves of colour. Seen together, these works will underscore Clark’s enduring fascination with his material. In his own words, “The paint is the subject."

We are delighted to host Ed Clark's first European exhibition at Turner Contemporary. His pioneering work from the 1950s, marked using unconventional tools like the push broom, has redefined American abstraction. The natural light of our galleries will uniquely accentuate Clark's vibrant exploration of colour and form. Just as the varied landscapes from Chicago to Paris and Brazil to Greece shaped his vision, we anticipate his work will resonate profoundly within the luminous spaces of our gallery, complemented by the ever-changing sea and sky beyond. -- Clarrie Wallis, Director of Turner Contemporary

TURNER CONTEMPORARY

Rendezvous, Margate, CT9 1HG

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Lynda Benglis @ Turner Contemporary, Margate

Lynda Benglis 

Turner Contemporary, Margate

3 February – 1 September 2024

Lynda Benglis 

Striking Cobra, 2020 

Everdur bronze (golden) 

Photo: Davin Lavikka

To coincide with Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950 - 1970 Turner Contemporary presents three recent sculptures by LYDA BENGLIS in the Sunley Gallery. 

Born in 1941, Lynda Benglis is celebrated for carving out a unique space within the male-dominated art world, earning acclaim for her pioneering use of wax and poured latex. Her latest polished bronze sculptures, with their dynamic and fluid forms, continue to challenge perceptions of space. These evolved from her Elephant Necklaces, clay sculptures, digitally enlarged into bronze, underscoring her deep exploration of materiality and the transformative process of form.

TURNER CONTEMPORARY

Rendezvous, Margate, Kent CT9 1HG

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Beyond Form Lines of Abstraction, 1950 - 1970 @ Turner Contemporary, Margate - Guest curated by Dr Flavia Frigeri

Beyond Form 

Lines of Abstraction, 1950 - 1970

Guest curated by Dr Flavia Frigeri

Turner Contemporary, Margate

3 February - 6 May 2024

Lenore Tawney At Work In Studio, New York, USA 

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Turner Contemporary presents Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950 - 1970, a group exhibition presenting abstraction as a radical global language shared by women artists in the twenty years following World War II. Guest curated by Dr Flavia Frigeri, the exhibition brings together the works of more than 50 artists to examine how, through abstract forms, materials and modes, women pushed the boundaries of artmaking while tackling seismic cultural, social and political shifts. Comprising over 80 artworks, predominantly sculpture, the exhibition traces how the language of abstraction developed on a global scale. 

Beyond Form re-evaluates how art, gender and the act of making intersected in the postWWII period, when men often eclipsed women’s artistic contributions. It highlights the pioneering efforts of women artists in the development of abstraction, asserting their vital role in the discourse of the times.

In the 1950s and 1960s, women actively resisted the pressure to return to domestic roles, instead capitalising on their substantial wartime work experiences. By embracing abstraction, these artists leveraged a form of expression that resonated with the era’s protofeminist sentiments. Through employing techniques like hanging, stacking and weaving they subverted established art-craft hierarchies and challenged entrenched gender norms. Their innovative use of sculptural materials allowed them to investigate critical social topics and explore themes concerning the human form, political discourse and more.

Looking beyond the Western canon, Beyond Form presents abstraction as a constellation of interconnected stories. It celebrates artists from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, positioning them as central figures in the history of abstraction and brings to light many works that have previously gone unseen.

The exhibition includes sculptures by Mária Bartuszová, Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke. It highlights Marisa Merz’s Living Sculpture (1966), a piece realised within the intimate confines of a domestic space before the artist had a studio. It also explores Carla Accardi and Marta Pan’s innovative use of modern materials to redefine space and perception. The fibre art of Maria Teresa Chojnacka and Ewa Pachucka is also featured, symbolising resistance and liberation from state censorship or monitoring. Complementing the sculptural focus of the exhibition are select paintings and reliefs, such as Carmen Herrera’s East (1965) and Agnes Martin’s Morning (1965), enriching the understanding of this artistic period.

Together, the works included in Beyond Form map a constellation that speaks to the global, collective language of abstraction that transcends geographical and cultural boundaries through the universal medium of sculpture.

Beyond Form is guest curated by Dr Flavia Frigeri, art historian and 'Chanel Curator for the Collection' at the National Portrait Gallery, London. At Turner Contemporary the exhibition is realised with Sarah Martin, Head of Exhibitions.

Dr Flavia Frigeri said: “There have been other exhibitions bringing together art by women from the post-war era, but what makes Beyond Form unique is connecting artists from across the globe through radical abstraction using forms and materials most recognisable in other contexts. We see a collection of artists who, at a surface level, are working in disparate locations, but are connected by a universal desire to express their personal, cultural, and political perspectives in ways that subvert the canon of the time.”

A publication with a new essay by Dr Flavia Frigeri accompanies the exhibition, published by Eiderdown Books.

Clarrie Wallis, Director of Turner Contemporary said: “Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950 - 1970 stands as a crucial global exploration of post-war abstraction, showcasing its multifaceted nature and its transformative impact on the language of sculpture. By liberating themselves from traditional constraints and embracing new materials, women artists were revolutionising the way they conveyed ideas through sculpture and ushering in a new era of creative expression.”

Exhibiting artists: Carla Accardi; Novera Ahmed; Anthea Alley; Ruth Asawa; Mária Bartuszová; Lynda Benglis; Margaret Benyon; Anna-Eva Bergman; Sandra Blow; Lee Bontecou; Louise Bourgeois; Rosemarie Castoro; Jocelyn Chewett; Maria Teresa Chojnacka; Lygia Clark; Saloua Raouda Choucair; Dadamaino; Dorothy Dehner; Claire Falkenstein; Habuba Farah; Maria Freire; Elisabeth Frink; Sue Fuller; Barbara Hepworth; Carmen Herrera; Eva Hesse; Sheila Hicks; Ilona Keserü; Bice Lazzari; Felicia Leirner; Kim Lim; Agnes Martin; Mary Martin; Marisa Merz; Yuko Nasaka; Louise Nevelson; Ewa Pachucka; Marta Pan; Howardina Pindell; Pilloo Pochkhanawala; Bridget Riley; Meg Rutherford; Ana Sacerdote; Behjat Sadr; Nasreen Mohamedi; Mona Saudi; Hedde Sterne; Arpita Singh; Jean Spencer; Hedda Sterne; Lenore Tawney; Marilia Gianetti Torres; Paule Vézelay; Daniela Vinopalová; Hannah Wilke; Gillian Wise.

TURNER CONTEMPORARY

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Patrick Heron @ Tate St Ives + Turner Contemporary - Retrospective Exhibition

Patrick Heron

Tate St Ives

19 May – 30 September 2018

Turner Contemporary, Margate

19 October 2018 – 6 January 2019

The acclaimed British artist PATRICK HERON (1920–1999) is celebrated in this retrospective exhibition, the first major show of his work for twenty years. One of the most significant and innovative figures in twentieth century British art, Patrick Heron played a major role in the development of post-war abstract art.

This exhibition – spanning over fifty years of work from 1943 to 1996 – provides a rare opportunity to experience the scope and ambitious scale of Heron’s painting as well as his consistent attachment to the subject of colour. In 1962 he explicitly claimed that ‘colour is both the subject and the means; the form and the content; the image and the meaning, in my painting today.’

Patrick Heron’s abstraction is a direct response to the light, colour and shape that he encountered every day. An art of pure visual sensation, his paintings are the result of his experience of looking acutely at the world and though they do not represent the garden and landscape surrounding his home and studio in Cornwall, those forms resonate in his painting in fundamental ways.

The exhibition in the new top-lit gallery at Tate St Ives is the first opportunity to bring together a group of these large-scale expansive works to Cornwall, reveal the full evolution of his vibrant abstract language, unlock new insights into his art and encourage the viewer – immersed in the rich aesthetic sensibility of his colour-saturated paintings – to enjoy the simple and joyous act of looking.

Rather than a conventional retrospective, with a chronological display, this show is a succession of spaces and juxtapositions across the full breadth of his career to encourage a new understanding of his achievement as an artist and the creative processes he followed.

Patrick Heron is curated by Andrew Wilson, Curator Modern and Contemporary British Art, Tate Britain and Sara Matson, Curator, Tate St Ives with Sarah Martin, Curator, Turner Contemporary.

Patrick Heron is organised in association with Turner Contemporary, where it will tour from 19 October 2018 to 6 January 2019. A joint symposium organised by Turner Contemporary with Tate St Ives will be held Friday 23 November 2018. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue from Tate Publishing.

TATE ST IVES

Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 1TG

www.tate.org.uk

Rose Wylie @ Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent

Rose Wylie
Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent
12 January - 31 March 2016

Rose Wylie 

Pink Table Cloth (Close-up) (Film Notes), 2013. 

Oil on Canvas 207 x 330 cm. 

Image courtesy of the artist and UNION Gallery, London.

To open 2016 in Turner Contemporary’s ground floor Sunley Gallery, the world-class gallery is showing a group of paintings and works on paper by celebrated Kent-based artist Rose Wylie.

Wylie’s bold, large-scale figurative paintings draw on ancient and folk art, such as Mexican street art and contemporary Egyptian Hajj painting, as well as art history and film. Their deliberate awkwardness, closer to the unselfconscious art of children, includes a collage-like approach in which mistakes are simply covered up with patches of cut-up canvas or paper.

This display, the first time the Sunley gallery has been used for painting, includes seven large-scale paintings, which can be viewed at balcony and ground floor level, as well as eight works on paper.

The inspiration for Wylie’s paintings often comes from a particular sight or visual moment that strikes her with a “special quality” that she tries to capture through her own language of painting. The Manufacturers, for example, originated from a newspaper photograph of a public apology by toy company Mattel, whose particular symmetry and formality reminded Wylie of Spanish 16th century still-life painting.

Rose Wylie 

Theatre Painting (Black Spots), 2015. 

Oil on Canvas 183 x 322 cm. 

Image courtesy of the artist and UNION Gallery, London.

The display also includes four works from Film Notes, a series of paintings inspired by remembered images from contemporary films. An avid and discerning film fan, her recent paintings and drawings have paid homage to directors as diverse as François Ozon, Werner Herzog, Claudia Llosa and Quentin Tarantino. Drawn to theatricality and fascinated by costume, Wylie responds to the dramatic and surreal image of a secret meeting in the desert from the film Syriana in Pink Tablecloth (Close Up) and Pink Tablecloth (Long Shot). In Bagdad Café (Film Notes) Wylie uses text to focus attention on the ‘white frock’ which is her equivalent to actor Marianne Sägebrecht’s iconic brown pleated suit and hat in the film.

ARTIST ROSE WYLIE

Rose Wylie was born in Kent, where she still lives and works. She studied at Folkestone and Dover School of Art (1952-6) and the Royal College of Art, London (1979-81) and now, in her early eighties, is enjoying renewed interest in her work in the UK and internationally with recent exhibitions at the Jerwood, Hastings (2012) and Tate Britain (BP Spotlight, 2013), as well as winning the prestigious John Moores painting prize in 2014. In 2010, Wylie was described by Germaine Greer as ‘Britain’s hottest new artist’.

TURNER CONTEMPORARY 
Rendezvous, Margate, CT9 1HG
www.turnercontemporary.org

Joachim Koester @ Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK

Joachim Koester: The Other Side of the Sky
Turner Contemporary, Margate
4 February - 8 May 2016

 

 

Joachim Koester

My Frontier is an Endless Wall of Points (after the mescaline drawings of Henri Michaux), 2007.

16mm film, black and white, silent 10 min. 24 sec.

Courtesy the artist and Jan Mot, Brussels.

Joachim Koester

Tarantism, 2007.

16 mm film, black and white, silent 6 min. 30 sec.

Courtesy the artist and Jan Mot, Brussels.

Turner Contemporary presents the first UK solo exhibition of work by Danish artist Joachim Koester, whose atmospheric films, installations and photography track the boundaries of the unknown, where fact and fiction crossover. Joachim Koester’s subtle yet sensuous works explore the medium of film.

Presenting a comprehensive series of works by Joachim Koester across the first floor gallery spaces, this will be Turner Contemporary’s largest film exhibition to date. Two new 16mm films will be showcased alongside works produced by the artist in the past 10 years, many of which will be shown in the UK for the first time.

Central to the exhibition is a new film inspired by Joachim Koester’s research into JMW Turner, The Other Side of the Sky (2015). This film explores Turner’s depiction and experience of storms via the analogy of psychedelic trips. Relating to surrealism and the 20th century mescaline experiments by Henri Michaux, it continues Joachim Koester’s interest in both physical journeys and psychological exploration. The Other Side of the Sky will be shown within a specially-built structure reminiscent of an abandoned shack, offering glimpses to a group of late watercolours by JMW Turner, which will be hung alongside it.

Joachim Koester is organised in collaboration with Fórum Eugénio de Almeida, Portugal and curated by Filipa Oliveira and Turner Contemporary.

TURNER CONTEMPORARY
Rendezvous, Margate, CT9 1HG
www.turnercontemporary.org

Sol LeWitt at Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent, UK

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #1136 
Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent 
3 December 2013 - 8 June 2014

Turner Contemporary in UK showcases work by the prolific and influential American artist SOL LEWITT (1928-2007), presenting his spectacular Wall Drawing #1136 in the gallery’s Clore Learning Studio.

The work is one of a number of vibrant drawings Sol LeWitt made in the last years of his life, following his earlier works in pencil and ink. Curved and vertical bands of brightly coloured acrylic paint (every primary and secondary colour plus grey) are applied by hand directly onto the walls to create a dazzling environment that surrounds the viewer.

Sol LeWitt is particularly associated with the development of Conceptual art in the 1960s. Like other conceptual art works by Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #1136 is concerned with ideas of geometry, repetition and mathematical precision and exists as a set of instructions written by the artist and accompanied by an illustrated diagram. Designed to be physically executed by others (only the very first Wall Drawing was produced by LeWitt himself) the works can be endlessly repeated in different locations at different times, generally only existing for the period of the exhibition.

Wall Drawing #1136 is on loan from ARTIST ROOMS, an inspirational collection of modern and contemporary art acquired for the nation by Tate and The National Galleries of Scotland through the generosity of Anthony d'Offay with additional support from funders, including the Art Fund. The ARTIST ROOMS tour programme, now in its sixth year, is showing at 18 museums and galleries across the UK in 2014. The tour is made possible thanks to the support of Arts Council England and the Art Fund.

To find out more information about ARTIST ROOMS On Tour visit artfund.org/artistrooms. To see the full ARTIST ROOMS collection visit tate.org.uk/artistrooms and nationalgalleries.org/artistrooms.

TURNER CONTEMPORARY 

Rendezvous, Margate, Kent, CT9 1HG, UK

www.turnercontemporary.org

Sculptor Carl Andre exhibits at Turner Contemporary, 2013

Carl Andre: Mass & Matter
Turner Contemporary, Kent, UK 
1 February - 6 May 2013

CARL ANDRE

Carl Andre building Cedar Piece, 1964 Document #37. 

Photo by Martin Ries / Gannett Ries Digital Designs

Courtesy of Turner Contemporary

Carl Andre: Mass & Matter brings together a group of sculptures and poems by one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Along with his contemporaries Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt, Carl André (American, b. 1935) is a leading artist associated with the emergence of Minimalism in the United States in the mid-1960s. 

Carl Andre is famous for his sculptures made of ordinary industrial materials which are arranged directly on the floor in simple linear arrangements or grids. By reducing sculpture to its most basic elements and re-orientating it from the vertical to the horizontal plane, Carl Andre helped to redefine the possibilities of sculpture for a whole generation of artists. 

CARL ANDRE

Carl Andre, Timber Piece, 1970

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Courtesy of Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, rba_c024180

This exhibition, Carl Andre’s first in a UK public gallery for over ten years, brings together eight sculptures made between 1967 and 1983, alongside a collection of his typed poems from the same period. At the heart of the exhibition, and of Carl Andre’s practice, is a concern with materials, which for Andre has always meant the common materials of everyday production – wood, bricks and metals such as aluminium, copper, steel, magnesium and lead. Carl Andre selects standard, commercially available units of these materials for his sculptural arrangements without altering them. He has said, ‘my ambition as an artist is to be the ‘Turner of matter’. As Turner severed colour from depiction, so I attempt to sever matterfrom depiction.’

 

CARL ANDRE

Carl Andre, Weathering Piece, 1970 

Courtesy of stichting kröller-müller museum

Like other artists associated with Minimalism, Carl Andre is concerned with the character of different materials. The artist describes wood as ‘the mother of matter’. Bricks are as valid materials for making art for Carl Andre as oil paint or plaster. The sculptor considers bricklayers to be ‘people of fine craft’.

Carl Andre’s poetry is based on a similar process of reduction. Individual words and phrases, often taken from pre-existing sources, are arranged on the page according to certain criteria, isolated and freed from all grammar. His poems are as concerned with the visual appearance of words on a page as with the content of the language itself. Although some of his earliest poems were handwritten, most of Andre’s text works from the late 1960s were produced on a manual typewriter, which automatically sets letters down in grid-like rows and columns analogous

A number of works in the exhibition date from the 1960s - a key period of Carl Andre’s career -such as 4 x 25 Altstadt Rectangle (1967). Carl Andre has worked with bricks throughout his career and this exhibition includes the more recent 60 x 1 Range Work (1983), a single line of equilateral bricks placed together to form a triangular prism. 

TURNER CONTEMPORARY

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A programme of events will run alongside the exhibition, engaging adults and children with the artworks, materials and the artist.

Carl Andre: Mass & Matter will tour to mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art from 14 June until 19 September 2013. 

In the United States, Dia Art Foundation in New York will organize the first North American retrospective of the work of Carl Andre with the exhibition Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958-2010, May - December 2014.

Platform Graduate Award 2012 Recipient: Joella Wheatley

Artist Joella Wheatley was announced last night as the inaugural recipient of the Platform Graduate Award 2012. About the Platform Graduate Award 2012 and Joella Wheatley, you can read a previous post on this blogzine.

JOELLA  WHEATLEY

Joella Wheatley, Untitled Platform Graduate Award recipient

Courtesy of Turner Contemporary, Margate

The 22 year old was presented with the award at Modern Art Oxford by artist Lindsay Seers for her work - a series of intense paintings that explore the mind as a channel for restructuring the concept of space.

Victoria Pomery, Acting Chair of Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) South East and Director, Turner Contemporary said: ‘We look forward to seeing how Joella will build on this opportunity in her future career. CVAN South East would like to see Platform continue to develop closer working relationships between South East galleries and their local Higher Education institutions while providing opportunities to support and showcase new talent.’

Joella Wheatley was one of eight graduate artists shortlisted as part of the Platform Graduate Award 2012 - an inaugural mentor programme devised by the CVAN South East network, between galleries and emerging artists from the South East.

Platform Award selection panel member and Director of MK Gallery, Anthony Spira said the standard of work throughout the Platform project had been particularly high, highlighting the wealth of Fine Art talent in the South East.

Over the last few months four flagship galleries, Aspex, MK Gallery, Modern Art Oxford and Turner Contemporary, have each provided a platform for 31 recent graduates from each of their local art colleges, of which eight were shortlisted for the award.

Joella Wheatley will receive a 12-month tailored programme of professional development from the four South East art galleries as well as £2,500 bursary towards further development of her practice.

Joella Wheatley, artist's website: www.joellawheatley.co.uk

Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate, CT9 1HG, UK

www.turnercontemporary.org

UK Platform for emerging artists shorlist - Platform Graduate Award 2012

UK Platform for emerging artists

Announcing the shorlist for the Platform Graduate Award

Four flagship contemporary art organisations will announce the recipient of the inaugural Platform Graduate Award later this month at Modern Art Oxford. This pilot project, devised through the Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) is an inaugural mentor programme between galleries and emerging artists from the South East. Over the last few months Aspex, MK Gallery, Modern Art Oxford and Turner Contemporary have each provided a platform for recent graduates from each of their region’s art colleges. 

KAREN CROSBY

Platform Graduate Showcase Karen Crosby, Traces, 2012

Digital Print 80cm x 59cm 

(c) Karen Crosby - Courtesy Turner Contemporary, Margate

ALEXANDRA HANSCHELL

Platform Graduate Showcase Alexandra Hanschell, Architectural Fracture, 2012

(c) Alexandra Hanschell - Courtesy Turner Contemporary, Margate

DOMINIC MAFIA

Platform Graduate Showcase Dominic Mafia, Picnic, 2012

(c) Dominic Mafia - Courtesy Turner Contemporary, Margate

Artworks from Jack Coulson, Karen Crosby, Naomi Eaton-Baudains, Alexandra Hanschell, Dominic Maffia, Sabina Tupan are on view at the Platform Graduate Showcase 2012 Exhibition through 18 November 2012 at Turner Contemporary, Margate

PLATFORM GRADUATE AWARD SHORTLIST OF ARTISTS

In total 31 artists presented their work and eight have been short-listed for the Platform Graduate Award.

A selection panel comprising of artist Lindsay Seers and representatives of the participant galleries will decide the recipient of the twelve month tailored programme of professional development, and £2,500 bursary. This will be announced on Thursday 22 November at Modern Art Oxford alongside a panel discussion on the role of the institution in the professional development of young artists.

Turner Contemporary, Margate

Dominic Maffia Sisters, 2012

University for the Creative Arts

Dominic Maffia was selected for his series of monochromatic paintings based on colour photographs taken from a family album. The artist’s older sisters feature in each of the paintings in various stages of their childhood. Maffia sensitively handles the subject matter of personal memory and the particular moment captured in a photograph, to create a striking and memorable series of paintings.

Naomi Eaton-Baudains Connection to the Earth, 2012

Canterbury Christ Church University

Naomi Eaton-Baudains inspiring site-specific installation Connection to the Earth, 2012 is the result of her ongoing interest in the relationship between science and nature. Eaton-Baudains curiosity led her to undertake a residency at Thanet Earth and has made a number of installations based on drawings made in a hydrophonics greenhouse there. Eaton-Baudains research-based practice enabled the artist to produce an impressive body of work.

Aspex, Portsmouth

George Bills The Wilson Project

Arts University College at Bournemouth, BA (Hons) Fine Art

George Bills' work relies on his sense of adventure and curiosity and about the world around him, often exploring the spaces we inhabit. Predominantly an installation artist, he often explores the spaces we inhabit. His approach is impulsive giving him freedom within all projects. The starting point might be anything, from material choices through to the context of the work's placement. Drawing is a large part of the way in which he works. It is where his ideas are developed first, and they sometimes becoming the finished piece. The Wilson Project is a combination of gallery object and film. George Bills created a transportable, mobile raft and documented its overland journey to the shore, where he successfully launched it and floated out to sea.

Joella Wheatley

Arts University College at Bournemouth, BA (Hons) Fine Art

Joella Wheatley's intense paintings explore the mind as a channel for restructuring the concept of space. Using the combination of drawing and painting as a springboard for invention, she challenges the boundaries of a first hand experience by containing herself within an actual physical space for a certain amount of time. This drastically reduces the amount of normal social interaction, of reasonable mental stimulus of exposure to the natural world, where almost everything that makes life human and bearable is emotionally, physically and psychologically removed. When the things that our brain and body rely on to connect to and understand are taken away from us, this denies us the ability to ask questions and seek reasons for explanations that allow us to understand ourselves. Joella Wheatley challenges the concept that a space is only defined by what you believe it to be.

Update 23-11-2012: Joella Wheatley is the recipient of the Platform Graduate Award 2012 (see more recent post)

MK Gallery, Milton Keynes

Marion Piper In Deed 

Buckinghamshire New University

Marion Piper’s practice is concerned with her sensory responses to the experience of walking through city spaces in London, New York and in her latest work, In Deed, through Milton Keynes. The performative activity of pacing through geometry physically connects her to the grid of the city.

Back in the studio she re-enacts the perceptual pleasure of the movement and observation within the structure of the city avenue, playfully interlayering clues from fiction, music, art history and theory. These include ideas of structure and movement within Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities, rhythm and harmony in the jazz music of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, and body motion and seeing from the writings of Paul Klee.

This latest series of paintings and drawings were created in June 2012, and include a selection of notebooks that play an important role within the work; along with several in progress canvases positioned on trestles.

Karolina Lebek Landscapes of Poland 

University of Bedfordshire

Karolina Lebek presents a mixture of photography, video and sound works which explore ideas of memory, distance and emotional loss.

Since moving from Poland to the UK, Karolina Lebek's emotional relationship with her native country has grown stronger, and has become the subject of this exhibition. In search of her own identity, Karolina Lebek kept revisiting places in Poland of great emotional charge. By confronting the utopian image of the past with the raw reality of the present surroundings, the artist has created a personal, emotional dialogue between the past and present. Captured landscapes and objects become visual references creating a diary of loss.

Modern Art Oxford

Kamila Janska Stem, Bars 2, Big Toe, Yellow, yellow, yellow, red, red, red… Grids – Pink & White, Grid –Brown, Grid – Green 2012

BA Fine Art, Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art

Kamila Janska investigates the control of social behavior through architecture. Her plaster and steel sculptures process discarded forms and combine them with raw materials, investing them with new meanings.

Cara George Bird Man,The Point was on a Corner, It’s what I call wallpaper 2012

BA Fine Art, Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art

Cara George uses sound and HD video editing techniques to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. Platform presents three works by Cara George; a ‘documentary’ on Bird Man Chris Lawton, The Point was on a Corner, an observational video of two voices recalling the same incident and It’s what I call wallpaper, a manipulated audio recording of a conversation with a BBC war correspondent.

About Platform Graduate Award 

Devised through the Contemporary Visual Art Network South East network (CVAN) , this project has brought together the professional expertise of both the higher education and public gallery sectors for the benefit of young artists.

With support from tutors and course leaders, teams of curators and education specialists from the four participating galleries attended local Summer degree shows, each selecting a handful of promising graduates for inclusion in their Platform exhibitions.

These have been taking place over the past few months with each selected artist being given the opportunity to work with professional teams during the installation and production of their shows. All mediums were considered and each have shown the rich variety and quality of work being produced by our next generation of artists in the South East.

Turner Contemporary www.turnercontemporary.org

MK Gallery www.mkgallery.org

Aspex www.aspex.org.uk

Modern Art Oxford www.modernartoxford.org.uk