Bad Animals
Anton Goldenstein, Rachel Goodyear, Georgia Hayes, Sharon McPhee, Kim L Pace, Cathie Pilkington, Alli Sharma
18 July - 16 August 2009
Preview Fri 17 July 6-9pm
Gallery open Fri-Sun 12-6pm
Bad animals do unspeakable things. Refusing to be subjugated to our domesticated will and resisting cuteness, the animals on show here are more likely to bite the hand that feeds them. Flaunting their over-sexed bodies, they cause a frisson of unease as watching them we are made to acknowledge the frightful ancestry of our own primordial existence.
This group of artists examine the bad animals phenomenon in a variety of ways from Cathie Pilkington’s promiscuous pranksters, Rachel Goodyear's faux cute drawings and Georgia Hayes' significantly endowed horse to Alli Sharma’s harmlessly ferocious bats. These pets definitely won’t win prizes.
Rachel Goodyear’s drawings present captured moments. Her characters reside within an existence where social etiquette no longer, or maybe never, applied. Many of her characters are seemingly devoid of emotion or stare blankly in resignation. Groups of her drawings suggest connections and these constructed coincidences are delicate in their nature and unsettling in their content. Exhibitions include The converging ends were misaligned (solo exhibition), Houldsworth Gallery, London; They never run, only call (solo exhibition), The International 3, Manchester; Unheimlich, The Nunnery, London; The Intertwining Line, The Cornerhouse, Manchester; The Drawing Room, Tate Liverpool.
Anton Goldenstein. South African-born Goldenstein references art and anthropological history in equal measures in his eclectic work, mixing them with issues of empire, colonialism and a sprinkle of absurdity. Anthropomorphic animals and society’s attitude to them often play a leading role and his Bad Animals piece, inspired by the story of The Trojan Horse by way of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, features a sculpture of one of his reoccurring motifs - the sinister rabbit. Shows include In the Meantime, The Star and Dove, Bristol; Toffee Armistice, Lemon Sky Projects, Miami, Florida; Oriel Mostyn Open, Llandudno, Wales (2006); Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2004)
Georgia Hayes borrows a direct simplicity from the graphic world transforming it into large visceral paintings. She paints from animal snapshots imbibing them with private pleasures, anxiety and fears; focusing on the relationship between the animals being watched by humans and the animals watching us. Recent exhibitions include John Moores 25 (2008) and Seeing the Wood for the Trees, HQ Gallery, Lewes, Sussex. Hayes has exhibited extensively including at The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, East Open and Oriel Mostyn Open.
Sharon McPhee paints animal and human characters in dramas of unfulfilled desire and unsatisfied longing using bold brushstrokes and thick paint. Her characters move in the space of a dark folk tale to explore the dangers of desire and appetite. McPhee graduated from Central St Martins with a BA in Fine Art in 2008 and has exhibited at Contemporary Art Projects and Rollo Contemporary Art in London.
Kim L Pace works with material that explores the edges between fact and fiction - including history and folk tales, literature and anthropology, to create drawings, installations and stop motion animations. For Bad Animals she is showing a series of animations populated by anthropomorphised creatures. In the sinister yet humorous Clone the figure of a human girl undergoes the transformation into a hybrid, bearing a close resemblance to the half-human/ half-fox character doing the remodelling. Another work features a small female cat that appears to lift her skirt in a provocative manner. Recent exhibitions include My Penguin, 39 Gallery, London; MuseumMan Santiago, Chile; Curiouser & Curiouser, McLean County Art Center, USA. Too Much is not Enough, Transition Gallery; Drawing Biennial, The Drawing Room, London; Gymnasium Fellowship show, Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Cathie Pilkington’s sculptural works often combine kitsch found objects with sinister figures. Her use of almost familiar but displaced domestic materials amplify the tableau effect: the scenes are both homely and ‘unheimlich’. At first glance her Bad Animals work depicts cute animals, a second glance reveals that the animals are engaged in unspeakable acts. Recent exhibitions include White Elephant at Marlborough, London and Thy Neighbours Ox 2 at Space Station Sixty-five, London. Her Transition Gallery projects include That’s Entertainment at The Whitstable Biennale (2008) and The Craft (2007), a two-person show with Emma Talbot.
Alli Sharma is drawn to vulgar domestic ornaments remembered from her own childhood. She paints these inconsequential objects with such emphasis on the materiality of the surface that they are transformed into substantial painterly icons. For Bad Animals she has turned her gaze to urban creatures who discreetly share our domestic space. Her series of bat paintings examine the cultural demonisation of a harmless animal that is often irrationally feared. Sharma has a BA Fine Art from Central St Martins School of Art (2007). Recent shows include Awopbopaloobop, Transition Gallery, London (2008); Un-still Life, The Apartment Gallery, London and The Painting Room, Transition Gallery, London (2008).
| Heure de début : | 17 juillet 2009 à 18:00 |
| Heure de fin : | 16 août 2009 à 18:00 |
| Lieu : | |
| Adresse : | Unit 25a Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, London E8 4QN |
| Ville : | London, United Kingdom |
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| Téléphone : | 02072544202 |
| Courriel : | |
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Show runs 2-25 Oct
