ANN-MARIE JAMES

NEWS

Alex Hoda and Ann-Marie James, MetamorphosesEdel Assanti in collaboration with 20 Projects, London15 March – 21 April 2012 Beauty Lays Elsewhere and Other by Charles Danby  Metamorphoses brings together the work of Ann-Marie James and Alex Hoda for the first time. James’ and Hoda’s works are as objects that breathe in the shadows, they are metamorphic, transforming and transformative. Grounded in bodily physicality any beauty lays elsewhere and other, witnessed, silent and unsighted. What resides in the shadows is powerful in its concealment and provocative in its emergence.   Ann-Marie James’ new series of five paintings are not only technically grounded in processes of painterly transformation, but they address transformation as their subject.  They are transformative in their proposal and outcome. James’ works return to the Italian master Bernini (1598–1680), prints of who’s sculptures she has previously used as a starting point, drawing on his celebrated sculpture Apollo and Daphne (1622–1625). Bernini’s sculpture takes its form from Roman poet Ovid’s (43BC-17) tale in his book Metamorphoses (8AD), which itself inherits oral traditions. There are numerous translations of Ovid’s poems as well as other visual renderings of the characters and stories. The complex layering and construction of surfaces within James’ paintings also represents a layering of time, sympathetic to both the plurality of myth and mythology within her subject and the narrative metamorphosis at its centre, namely that in which Daphne pursued by Apollo’s love that she spurns, is transformed into a tree as he reaches out to embrace her. Curiously, Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne reveals the story of cupid’s exacting revenge on Apollo (having shot an arrow of love in Apollo and an arrow of hatred in Daphne) across its single marble surface, so that as the sculpture is viewed in the round, film-like transformations occur as pictorial frames follow and fold into one another.     It is perhaps a related idea of narrative loosening (through transformation) that best informs Alex Hoda’s sculptural works, Artemkristall (Breathhcrystal) (2011) and Holen (Socketcave) (2011). These depart from earlier works that are explicit, confrontational and sexually jarring in their proposal, upholding a particular machismo of sculptural pathos that privileges the primal over that of ciphers and subtexts. Replacing the previous mediums of toys rubber and latex, the compound metals used in Hoda’s latest works strip back and surrender the associative representation of the readymade. These Sculptures formlessness courts an opposite site of narrative transformation and metamorphosis to that of Bernini; not of controlled representation, but of open association. Most importantly it is a transformation that like Bernini’s, is enacted by the viewer.     In their inertness. Hoda’s works become fluid fields of association, opportunist and transformative through glimpses and senses of bodily or animalistic form, of bone, of plant, or other materially bound objects. In their balanced and dynamic poise they court movement but in their stasis, they also appear like pupa.  They are coarse, crystalline structures that could rupture or break open at any moment. It is not just associative images of bone, skin or entangled tree roots that the amorphousness of these works trigger, but it is also the internal potential of what might lurk beneath their skin.  In shadows Hoda’s works breathe powerfully, absorbing and reflecting, transmitting and receiving, attesting to the conscious will to conjure form of material through representation.     Akin to this, James invites us to enter her paintings wherever we choose. Returning to Ovid does not bring us to the origin of the story of the encounter between Cupid, Apollo and Daphne; so with her works there is no linear feed. We have entered a labyrinth where traces of stories sit in proximity to each other. Their approximation is the sense of line and the erring of narrative.  It is perhaps fitting that James’ paintings begin with lines, from drawings made outside of the paintings. The loosening of these lines through their transference to screen-printing screens creates a mechanical mediation, denoting a dialogue with Hoda’s practice; enabling James not to come to the paintings with tight pencil lines, but with descriptive marks released from her original drawings. Each painting is an intersection of multiple screens, an amalgamation of marks and scales from the drawings made from Bernini’s sculpture Apollo and Daphne, its frames continually reconfigured and remixed. Significantly, James begins these paintings with a grey ground. Grey is the mid-colour of the colour wheel, and within it colours are extractable against its complimentary pairing (grey pink, grey blue). It is this flexibility that James draws upon within the last phases of her painting.  She applies intricate washes that draw out detail, shifting the surface and its coding through spectral flickers of colour that may instruct a sense of flesh or pallid organic growth. Furthermore, James also draws on opportunities that lie within marks found across the surfaces, constructing pockets of intensive colour in focused areas of the paintings. The illustrative lines that animate these passages, belonging as much to Florentine fresco and Japanese ‘ukiyo-e’ (pictures of the floating world)as to Disney, celebrate neither the representation of an image, nor its presence, but its opportunity and potential. Daphne’s metamorphosis into a tree (to end Apollo’s advances) unlocks within our collective consciousness the transformative potential of organic and inanimate objects. It opens an unseen world of others, of ghosts and spirits. Her story is also the story of the relentless and maddening pursuit of unrequited love, a mantle central to Romantic writers, poets and painters. So through continual transformation, Daphne inhabits a diverse landscape transcending horror, fantasy and science fiction. As well as inhabiting Ann-Marie James’ paintings, her vested metamorphosis is bound within the crystalline alchemy of Alex Hoda’s sculptural works. 


Alex Hoda and Ann-Marie James, Metamorphoses
Edel Assanti in collaboration with 20 Projects, London
15 March – 21 April 2012


Beauty Lays Elsewhere and Other
by Charles Danby 


Metamorphoses brings together the work of Ann-Marie James and Alex Hoda for the first time. James’ and Hoda’s works are as objects that breathe in the shadows, they are metamorphic, transforming and transformative. Grounded in bodily physicality any beauty lays elsewhere and other, witnessed, silent and unsighted. What resides in the shadows is powerful in its concealment and provocative in its emergence.

 

Ann-Marie James’ new series of five paintings are not only technically grounded in processes of painterly transformation, but they address transformation as their subject.  They are transformative in their proposal and outcome. James’ works return to the Italian master Bernini (1598–1680), prints of who’s sculptures she has previously used as a starting point, drawing on his celebrated sculpture Apollo and Daphne (1622–1625). Bernini’s sculpture takes its form from Roman poet Ovid’s (43BC-17) tale in his book Metamorphoses (8AD), which itself inherits oral traditions. There are numerous translations of Ovid’s poems as well as other visual renderings of the characters and stories. The complex layering and construction of surfaces within James’ paintings also represents a layering of time, sympathetic to both the plurality of myth and mythology within her subject and the narrative metamorphosis at its centre, namely that in which Daphne pursued by Apollo’s love that she spurns, is transformed into a tree as he reaches out to embrace her. Curiously, Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne reveals the story of cupid’s exacting revenge on Apollo (having shot an arrow of love in Apollo and an arrow of hatred in Daphne) across its single marble surface, so that as the sculpture is viewed in the round, film-like transformations occur as pictorial frames follow and fold into one another.

 

 

It is perhaps a related idea of narrative loosening (through transformation) that best informs Alex Hoda’s sculptural works, Artemkristall (Breathhcrystal) (2011) and Holen (Socketcave) (2011). These depart from earlier works that are explicit, confrontational and sexually jarring in their proposal, upholding a particular machismo of sculptural pathos that privileges the primal over that of ciphers and subtexts. Replacing the previous mediums of toys rubber and latex, the compound metals used in Hoda’s latest works strip back and surrender the associative representation of the readymade. These Sculptures formlessness courts an opposite site of narrative transformation and metamorphosis to that of Bernini; not of controlled representation, but of open association. Most importantly it is a transformation that like Bernini’s, is enacted by the viewer.

 

 

In their inertness. Hoda’s works become fluid fields of association, opportunist and transformative through glimpses and senses of bodily or animalistic form, of bone, of plant, or other materially bound objects. In their balanced and dynamic poise they court movement but in their stasis, they also appear like pupa.  They are coarse, crystalline structures that could rupture or break open at any moment. It is not just associative images of bone, skin or entangled tree roots that the amorphousness of these works trigger, but it is also the internal potential of what might lurk beneath their skin.  In shadows Hoda’s works breathe powerfully, absorbing and reflecting, transmitting and receiving, attesting to the conscious will to conjure form of material through representation.

 

 

Akin to this, James invites us to enter her paintings wherever we choose. Returning to Ovid does not bring us to the origin of the story of the encounter between Cupid, Apollo and Daphne; so with her works there is no linear feed. We have entered a labyrinth where traces of stories sit in proximity to each other. Their approximation is the sense of line and the erring of narrative.  It is perhaps fitting that James’ paintings begin with lines, from drawings made outside of the paintings. The loosening of these lines through their transference to screen-printing screens creates a mechanical mediation, denoting a dialogue with Hoda’s practice; enabling James not to come to the paintings with tight pencil lines, but with descriptive marks released from her original drawings. Each painting is an intersection of multiple screens, an amalgamation of marks and scales from the drawings made from Bernini’s sculpture Apollo and Daphne, its frames continually reconfigured and remixed.


Significantly, James begins these paintings with a grey ground. Grey is the mid-colour of the colour wheel, and within it colours are extractable against its complimentary pairing (grey pink, grey blue). It is this flexibility that James draws upon within the last phases of her painting.  She applies intricate washes that draw out detail, shifting the surface and its coding through spectral flickers of colour that may instruct a sense of flesh or pallid organic growth. Furthermore, James also draws on opportunities that lie within marks found across the surfaces, constructing pockets of intensive colour in focused areas of the paintings. The illustrative lines that animate these passages, belonging as much to Florentine fresco and Japanese ‘ukiyo-e’ (pictures of the floating world)as to Disney, celebrate neither the representation of an image, nor its presence, but its opportunity and potential.


Daphne’s metamorphosis into a tree (to end Apollo’s advances) unlocks within our collective consciousness the transformative potential of organic and inanimate objects. It opens an unseen world of others, of ghosts and spirits. Her story is also the story of the relentless and maddening pursuit of unrequited love, a mantle central to Romantic writers, poets and painters. So through continual transformation, Daphne inhabits a diverse landscape transcending horror, fantasy and science fiction. As well as inhabiting Ann-Marie James’ paintings, her vested metamorphosis is bound within the crystalline alchemy of Alex Hoda’s sculptural works. 

♦ 2 months ago

WunderkammerThe Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust, London8-11 March 2012 Wunderkammer is the second interim shows by the MA fine art students from Wimbledon College of Art. Curated by Tom Cuckle in collaboration with The Nunnery Gallery and Bow Arts Trust. The exhibition takes its title from the ‘wunderkammers’, or ‘cabinets of curiosities’, which emerged across Europe in the 16th Century – fabulous collections of artifacts, artworks, plant and animal samples created by rich noblemen, those in search of prestige or of knowledge. The images and surviving examples of the wunderkammer still fascinate many today, partly for their juxtaposition of objects that would never be seen side-by-side in a modern museum. The wunderkammer, by displaying Neolithic carvings next to clockwork automata, or narwhal horns alongside stuffed crocodiles, allowed their visitors to discover parallels between otherwise dissimilar objects. Wunderkammer at The Nunnery Gallery recreates the cabinet of curiosities for today’s audience, as a way of navigating a diversity of artistic practices, wide-ranging in subject matter, in reference points and in approaches. Wunderkammer contradicts the conventions of a contemporary exhibition hang. Taking inspiration from famous images of the cabinets, in which artefacts cover the ceiling and walls, the exhibition creates groupings and constellations of disparate artworks and objects. Alongside their work, Wunderkammer also incorporates objects chosen by the artists in the show including well thumbed books of reference, the objects they collect, and pieces of furniture from their studios. This exhibition is the second part of the Wimbledon College of Art’s MA Show. Week 1 (starting 1st March) will be titled ‘Memoria Technica’ which will also be held The Nunnery Gallery. Artists:  Ralph Anderson, Sara Anne Barraclough, Magali Bellego, Tony Blackmore, Josué Borges, Sasha Bowles, Bethe Bronson, Chris Brooke, Elaine Brown, Chingya Chen, Patricia Crowe, Amelia Critchlow, Karen David, Alice Eikelpoth, Darragh Gallagher, Robert Good, Helen Goodwin, Alastair Gordon, Nicola Harlow, Jane Harris, Barry Haskins, Victoria Haviland, Zahura Hossain, Ann-Marie James, Sean Kavanagh, Laura Marker, Gill Newton, Stefan Orlowski, Esperanza Perkins, Marta Ravasi, Zita Saffrette, Keivan Sarrafan-Chaharsoughi, Ernesto Torres Alarcon, Inês Tavares Isidoro, George Voutsinos-Frayne, Deb Whitney, Zuochao Zhang


Wunderkammer
The Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust, London
8-11 March 2012

Wunderkammer is the second interim shows by the MA fine art students from Wimbledon College of Art. Curated by Tom Cuckle in collaboration with The Nunnery Gallery and Bow Arts Trust.

The exhibition takes its title from the ‘wunderkammers’, or ‘cabinets of curiosities’, which emerged across Europe in the 16th Century – fabulous collections of artifacts, artworks, plant and animal samples created by rich noblemen, those in search of prestige or of knowledge. The images and surviving examples of the wunderkammer still fascinate many today, partly for their juxtaposition of objects that would never be seen side-by-side in a modern museum.

The wunderkammer, by displaying Neolithic carvings next to clockwork automata, or narwhal horns alongside stuffed crocodiles, allowed their visitors to discover parallels between otherwise dissimilar objects. Wunderkammer at The Nunnery Gallery recreates the cabinet of curiosities for today’s audience, as a way of navigating a diversity of artistic practices, wide-ranging in subject matter, in reference points and in approaches.

Wunderkammer contradicts the conventions of a contemporary exhibition hang. Taking inspiration from famous images of the cabinets, in which artefacts cover the ceiling and walls, the exhibition creates groupings and constellations of disparate artworks and objects. Alongside their work, Wunderkammer also incorporates objects chosen by the artists in the show including well thumbed books of reference, the objects they collect, and pieces of furniture from their studios.

This exhibition is the second part of the Wimbledon College of Art’s MA Show. Week 1 (starting 1st March) will be titled ‘Memoria Technica’ which will also be held The Nunnery Gallery.

Artists: 

Ralph Anderson, Sara Anne Barraclough, Magali Bellego, Tony Blackmore, Josué Borges, Sasha Bowles, Bethe Bronson, Chris Brooke, Elaine Brown, Chingya Chen, Patricia Crowe, Amelia Critchlow, Karen David, Alice Eikelpoth, Darragh Gallagher, Robert Good, Helen Goodwin, Alastair Gordon, Nicola Harlow, Jane Harris, Barry Haskins, Victoria Haviland, Zahura Hossain, Ann-Marie James, Sean Kavanagh, Laura Marker, Gill Newton, Stefan Orlowski, Esperanza Perkins, Marta Ravasi, Zita Saffrette, Keivan Sarrafan-Chaharsoughi, Ernesto Torres Alarcon, Inês Tavares Isidoro, George Voutsinos-Frayne, Deb Whitney, Zuochao Zhang

♦ 2 months ago

‘Young British Art II’ – an exhibition curated by Ryan Gander and Christina von Rotenhan at DIENSTGEBÄUDE, Zurich, CH Opening Thursday 9 February 2012, 6.00pm Open Thu – Sat, 12pm – 6pm and by appointment Open until 17 March, 2012  / This exhibition is a group show of 46 artists selected by the artist Ryan Gander. // The young artists chosen for this exhibition are all exceptionally talented individuals, who are British or live in Britain. /// All the works in this exhibition are black and white. //// No other curatorial themes are intentionally related to this exhibition, any other meaning derived from it is purely circumstance or coincidence. ///// Forwards. Thomas Adank, Aaron Angell, Cornelia Baltes, Thomas Bardwell, Jacqueline Bebb, Richard Bevan, Rachal Bradley, Alice Browne, Michael Burkitt, KIMI CONRAD, Edward Cotterill, Simon Davenport, Tim Davies, Tomas Downes, Steven Emmanuel, Alex Farrar, James Ferris, Robert Filby, Tom Gidley, Matt Golden, Tommy Grace, Anthony Green, Richard Healy, Dean Hughes, Max Hymes, Ann-Marie James, Rob Lye, Jessica Mallock, Harry Meadley, John Henry Newton, Jonathan O’Dwyer, Murray O’Grady, Barnie Page, Myles Painter, Sam Porritt, Lucia Quevedo, Dan Rees, Matthew Richardson, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Helen Robertson, Sven Sachsalber, Giorgio Sadotti, Iona Smith, The Hut Project, Santo Tolone, Jeanine Woollard. ‘Young British Art II’ is organised by Dienstgebäude Zurich and Limoncello in London and follows the first instalment that was held at the gallery in May 2011. 


‘Young British Art II’ – an exhibition curated by Ryan Gander and Christina von Rotenhan at DIENSTGEBÄUDE, Zurich, CH

Opening Thursday 9 February 2012, 6.00pm Open Thu – Sat, 12pm – 6pm and by appointment Open until 17 March, 2012 

/ This exhibition is a group show of 46 artists selected by the artist Ryan Gander.
// The young artists chosen for this exhibition are all exceptionally talented individuals, who are British or live in Britain.
/// All the works in this exhibition are black and white.
//// No other curatorial themes are intentionally related to this exhibition, any other meaning derived from it is purely circumstance or coincidence.
///// Forwards.

Thomas Adank, Aaron Angell, Cornelia Baltes, Thomas Bardwell, Jacqueline Bebb, Richard Bevan, Rachal Bradley, Alice Browne, Michael Burkitt, KIMI CONRAD, Edward Cotterill, Simon Davenport, Tim Davies, Tomas Downes, Steven Emmanuel, Alex Farrar, James Ferris, Robert Filby, Tom Gidley, Matt Golden, Tommy Grace, Anthony Green, Richard Healy, Dean Hughes, Max Hymes, Ann-Marie James, Rob Lye, Jessica Mallock, Harry Meadley, John Henry Newton, Jonathan O’Dwyer, Murray O’Grady, Barnie Page, Myles Painter, Sam Porritt, Lucia Quevedo, Dan Rees, Matthew Richardson, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Helen Robertson, Sven Sachsalber, Giorgio Sadotti, Iona Smith, The Hut Project, Santo Tolone, Jeanine Woollard.

‘Young British Art II’ is organised by Dienstgebäude Zurich and Limoncello in London and follows the first instalment that was held at the gallery in May 2011. 

♦ 3 months ago

(In)visible Laurence Edwards │ Henry Hudson │ Ann-Marie James │ Sayaka Maruyama │ Groves/Natcheva │ Louise Thomas │ Hugo Wilson Edel Assanti276 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 1BBwww.edelassanti.com  22 September - 13 November 2011  With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.’ - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities  Edel Assanti is pleased to present (In)visible, an exhibition of interdisciplinary works by six artists, and a specially commissioned redesign of the gallery’s exhibition space by architects Groves/Natcheva. Taking Calvino’s Invisible Cities as its curatorial starting point, Edel Assanti invite the viewer to reimagine the gallery, exploring the exhibition using Groves/Natcheva’s fantastical blueprint as a springboard. In Calvino’s journey of storytelling, material and philosophical systems are allowed into the field of play only to be distorted. Nothing is what it seems. Everything conceals something else. (In)visible is based broadly on this tactic, bringing together artists who share an interest in blurring boundaries between surface and depth, and between past and present.  Groves/Natcheva have intertwined the exhibits and the gallery’s spaces with their architectural practice’s own memories and a generous infusion of fantasy. The drawing is in the building, and the building is in the drawing in this visual invitation to see and think as an architect can. It is a dreamscape of uncharted territory and a reminder that, as Aldo Rossi wrote in his influential The Architecture of the City, ‘The city is as irrational as any work of art, and its mystery is perhaps above all to be found in the secret and ceaseless will of its collective manifestations.’ Between the visible and the invisible, past and present, reality and the dreamscape, In(visible) entices us into fantastical cities of the mind. [Extract from (In)visible – an essay by Ayla Lepine accompanying the exhibition] Image: Ann-Marie James; Beside me on the left appeared, 2011oil and acrylic on canvas; 274.2 x 154.4 cm


(In)visible

Laurence Edwards │ Henry Hudson │ Ann-Marie James │ Sayaka Maruyama │ Groves/Natcheva │ Louise Thomas │ Hugo Wilson

Edel Assanti
276 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 1BB
www.edelassanti.com 

22 September - 13 November 2011 

With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.’

- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities 

Edel Assanti is pleased to present (In)visible, an exhibition of interdisciplinary works by six artists, and a specially commissioned redesign of the gallery’s exhibition space by architects Groves/Natcheva. Taking Calvino’s Invisible Cities as its curatorial starting point, Edel Assanti invite the viewer to reimagine the gallery, exploring the exhibition using Groves/Natcheva’s fantastical blueprint as a springboard.

In Calvino’s journey of storytelling, material and philosophical systems are allowed into the field of play only to be distorted. Nothing is what it seems. Everything conceals something else. (In)visible is based broadly on this tactic, bringing together artists who share an interest in blurring boundaries between surface and depth, and between past and present. 

Groves/Natcheva have intertwined the exhibits and the gallery’s spaces with their architectural practice’s own memories and a generous infusion of fantasy. The drawing is in the building, and the building is in the drawing in this visual invitation to see and think as an architect can. It is a dreamscape of uncharted territory and a reminder that, as Aldo Rossi wrote in his influential The Architecture of the City, ‘The city is as irrational as any work of art, and its mystery is perhaps above all to be found in the secret and ceaseless will of its collective manifestations.’

Between the visible and the invisible, past and present, reality and the dreamscape, In(visible) entices us into fantastical cities of the mind.

[Extract from (In)visible – an essay by Ayla Lepine accompanying the exhibition]

Image: 
Ann-Marie James; Beside me on the left appeared, 2011
oil and acrylic on canvas; 274.2 x 154.4 cm

♦ 8 months ago

Wit, Fear and Sarcasm Rowena Hughes | Ann-Marie James | Dodda Maggy | Mariana Mauricio | Robert Nicol FAS Contemporary The Fine Art Society, Est. 1876148 New Bond Street, London W1S 2JTwww.fascontemporary.com 10 August – 15 September 2011 FAS Contemporary is delighted to present ‘Wit, Fear and Sarcasm’, the summer group exhibition featuring emerging London-based and international artists; Rowena Hughes, Ann-Marie James, Dodda Maggy, Mariana Mauricio and Robert Nicol. The exhibition draws together the work of five artists whose practice presents a discourse with historicity. Through their engagement with the past, each practitioner offers the viewer an identifiable root into his/ her work. Yet through subtle subversions and contortions, they twist and challenge our perceptions, presenting us with cryptic, complex and often dark narratives that speak about the underlying tensions of contemporary life. A recent graduate of the prestigious Slade MFA, Rowena Hughes screenprints geometric forms based on the Penrose Tiling Pattern onto black and white found imagery from old, discarded books. The effect is one of layering - of media, form and ultimately meaning. Toying with the dualistic readings of the works as abstract or figurative, arbitrary or rational, aesthetic or academic, obscuration or revelation, Hughes plays complex puzzles with the viewer. Receiving her BA from Goldsmiths, Hughes has exhibited across the UK including being selected for the 2010 New Contemporaries exhibition at A Foundation, Liverpool and the ICA, London. She lives and works in London. Unveiling two new paintings – her most ambitious to date - Ann-Marie James’s practice presents us with a dialogue with Art History. Her interest in anatomy takes its precision from the Renaissance, she then contorts it like the Baroque and extracts the simplified abstract forms, rendering her work at once strange and familiar, abstract and figurative. Playfully quoting from the past and drawing on the Grotesque, James depicts limbs wrapped around limbs, deliberately leaving an ambiguity as to whether the embrace is amorous or violent, a beautiful monster of a sort. A graduate of both Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (BA Hons Fine Art, 2004) and Chelsea College of Art and Design (Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art, 2010), James is currently undertaking the MA in Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Art. She has exhibited across the UK, Europe and the US and more recently, Japan. Central to the work of video artist, Dodda Maggy, are questions about the body, voyeurism and subjecthood. In her work Stella, we are presented with two narratives, portraying two seemingly oppositional facets of a persona, played by the artist herself. From the alluring young woman in the first part whose self-confidence turns to fearful self-consciousness to the playful innocence of the bouncing girls, Maggy explores the role of women in film past and present. Also composing and performing the accompanying music, Maggy places equal importance on the audio as a device for conveying meaning. Based in Iceland, Maggy studied at The Icelandic Academy of the Arts (BA Fine Art, 2004) and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (MFA, 2009). She has exhibited across Europe including a solo exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 2010. She lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland. Using found photographs of Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s, Mariana Mauricio’s process is both additive and reductive, even verging on the destructive in her most recent body of work. The original photographs selected by the artist depict respectable family life - an unsettlingly ‘happy’ quotidian, in stark contrast to the reality of Brazil during the years of the dictatorship. Mauricio, through her interventions, unveils this underlying tension and by playing with the scale of the original photograph as she transforms it to giclee print, attributes it with new darker significance. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Mauricio graduated from the BA Hons Fine Art degree at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2008. She has since exhibited across London including at Phillips de Pury at the Saatchi Gallery (2008) and currently lives and works between London and Rio de Janeiro. Drawing on multiple references as diverse as French Classicism, American Folk Art, Dutch Genre painting and popular culture, Robert Nicol creates fantastical narratives littered with improbable characters. The nonspecific contexts of grand architectural settings, landscapes or interiors root the work in the familiar but the surreal juxtapositions and caustic detail present the viewer with witty parodies of our own world. A graduate of Glasgow School of Art (BA, 2004) and the Royal College of Art (MA, 2007), Nicol has exhibited across the UK and Europe and was selected by Bloomberg Contemporaries in 2004. He lives and works in London.


Wit, Fear and Sarcasm


Rowena Hughes | Ann-Marie James | Dodda Maggy | Mariana Mauricio | Robert Nicol

FAS Contemporary 
The Fine Art Society, Est. 1876
148 New Bond Street, London W1S 2JT
www.fascontemporary.com

10 August – 15 September 2011

FAS Contemporary is delighted to present ‘Wit, Fear and Sarcasm’, the summer group exhibition featuring emerging London-based and international artists; Rowena Hughes, Ann-Marie James, Dodda Maggy, Mariana Mauricio and Robert Nicol.

The exhibition draws together the work of five artists whose practice presents a discourse with historicity. Through their engagement with the past, each practitioner offers the viewer an identifiable root into his/ her work. Yet through subtle subversions and contortions, they twist and challenge our perceptions, presenting us with cryptic, complex and often dark narratives that speak about the underlying tensions of contemporary life.

A recent graduate of the prestigious Slade MFA, Rowena Hughes screenprints geometric forms based on the Penrose Tiling Pattern onto black and white found imagery from old, discarded books. The effect is one of layering - of media, form and ultimately meaning. Toying with the dualistic readings of the works as abstract or figurative, arbitrary or rational, aesthetic or academic, obscuration or revelation, Hughes plays complex puzzles with the viewer. Receiving her BA from Goldsmiths, Hughes has exhibited across the UK including being selected for the 2010 New Contemporaries exhibition at A Foundation, Liverpool and the ICA, London. She lives and works in London.

Unveiling two new paintings – her most ambitious to date - Ann-Marie James’s practice presents us with a dialogue with Art History. Her interest in anatomy takes its precision from the Renaissance, she then contorts it like the Baroque and extracts the simplified abstract forms, rendering her work at once strange and familiar, abstract and figurative. Playfully quoting from the past and drawing on the Grotesque, James depicts limbs wrapped around limbs, deliberately leaving an ambiguity as to whether the embrace is amorous or violent, a beautiful monster of a sort. A graduate of both Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (BA Hons Fine Art, 2004) and Chelsea College of Art and Design (Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art, 2010), James is currently undertaking the MA in Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Art. She has exhibited across the UK, Europe and the US and more recently, Japan.

Central to the work of video artist, Dodda Maggy, are questions about the body, voyeurism and subjecthood. In her work Stella, we are presented with two narratives, portraying two seemingly oppositional facets of a persona, played by the artist herself. From the alluring young woman in the first part whose self-confidence turns to fearful self-consciousness to the playful innocence of the bouncing girls, Maggy explores the role of women in film past and present. Also composing and performing the accompanying music, Maggy places equal importance on the audio as a device for conveying meaning. Based in Iceland, Maggy studied at The Icelandic Academy of the Arts (BA Fine Art, 2004) and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (MFA, 2009). She has exhibited across Europe including a solo exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 2010. She lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Using found photographs of Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s, Mariana Mauricio’s process is both additive and reductive, even verging on the destructive in her most recent body of work. The original photographs selected by the artist depict respectable family life - an unsettlingly ‘happy’ quotidian, in stark contrast to the reality of Brazil during the years of the dictatorship. Mauricio, through her interventions, unveils this underlying tension and by playing with the scale of the original photograph as she transforms it to giclee print, attributes it with new darker significance. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Mauricio graduated from the BA Hons Fine Art degree at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2008. She has since exhibited across London including at Phillips de Pury at the Saatchi Gallery (2008) and currently lives and works between London and Rio de Janeiro.

Drawing on multiple references as diverse as French Classicism, American Folk Art, Dutch Genre painting and popular culture, Robert Nicol creates fantastical narratives littered with improbable characters. The nonspecific contexts of grand architectural settings, landscapes or interiors root the work in the familiar but the surreal juxtapositions and caustic detail present the viewer with witty parodies of our own world. A graduate of Glasgow School of Art (BA, 2004) and the Royal College of Art (MA, 2007), Nicol has exhibited across the UK and Europe and was selected by Bloomberg Contemporaries in 2004. He lives and works in London.

♦ 8 months ago