I D SMEAR

A SOLO SHOW OF PAINTINGS, ASSEMBLAGES AND SCULPTURE AND DIGITAL PRINTS BY ANDREW LITTEN

1. 
   
   

   

   
   
   
   
   
   Private View: Friday 8th November 6pm till late
   with drinks, delicious curry and music
   
   
   
   Exhibition continues:
   
   Saturday 9, Sunday 10, Thursday 14, Friday 15,
   Saturday 16, Sunday 17:
   
   12 mid-day to 5pm
   
   
   Andrew Litten’s work stirs from the groin – that place of raw bestiality and tenderest compassion. It is the place we all fear; a place of the extreme duality and conflicting, barely controllable urges – a bipolarity of our human beast within. Like so many expressionistic artists, Gorge Baselitz comes to mind, in Andrew’s work the rawness is also the vulnerability. Andrew is searching for poetry, the poetry of living, loving, hurting and dying; the vulnerable, the powerful, the human.
   

   
   

   But there is a continuity to Andrew’s work in duality, contradiction and opposition; his work carries extreme experience; passion and flippancy; allure and repulsion. These qualities and Andrew’s sense of purpose have been influenced by the powerful poetry of Louise Bourgeois, the master of interpreting our human beast within.

   
   

   Text by Jane Boyer

   
   

   
   

   For Litten, as a figurative artist representing the human form, the manipulation of materials and the manipulation of identity are intrinsically linked. Perhaps subversive, tender, malevolent, compassionate – pure expression, which is not political or demographic or defined by taste, is at the heart of it all.

   
   

   Creativity is empowering and empathy is powerful - and the need to see raw human existence drives it all forward.

   
   

   Andrew Litten   ID SMEAR

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

VEGAS LEGS

an exhibition of new works by Lewk Wilmshurst

Private View Saturday 2nd November from 6pm to 9pm

or by appointment 29th October to 3rd November: 07807 924 881

Including a MotorMouth peer crit at 6pm Saturday.. come and join the conversation!

MAYBE WE’RE HERE [TITLE?]

“In the middle of a desert, colossal neon-lit fountains incongruously spit blasé displays on the hour, every hour, fifty year-old palm trees grow thick with green, and 28oz beef steaks and buttery lobsters ooze over thousands of platters all day and all night.” 

L.Wilmshurst, 2012.

Against a narrative of constant setbacks I maintain control.

There are hillsides in the Lake District dedicated to maintaining ancient stock, including a breed of sheep whose fleece is worth less than 20p, and whose meat has long since fallen out of fashion, because I say so.

We have designed a world in which the natural is unclean and savage, exotic and distant, managed, and irresistibly consumable. From shopping malls inside cavernous casinos our most selfish desires are accommodated. I amass endless credit from shelves forever stocked, in supermarkets that never close. I have accepted that the oil will never run dry, and the mango tree will continue to drop fresh, ripe, Turner sunset-coloured fruits straight into my lap, year round.

We no longer need to watch the rich and famous living out our fantasies. We can stay at home, on the sofa, at the dinner table, and watch ordinary people instead. The fantastical and unrealistic is tantalisingly close. The screens tell me that everything is a little bit more real; a little more achievable. Perhaps if I watch enough other people doing it, one day it will be me on that tiny cell phone or jumbotron, doing those things to that pornstar while gambling everything I borrowed on the hope of being able to do it all again tomorrow.

Even when we lose we feel like we are winning.

Accompanying text by Trevor H Smith

Poster by Garry Edison Cook

 TOWER

1. 
   

   
    Matthew Roy Arnold

   
   

   
    a solo show of sculpture with sound composed and designed by Daniel Cioccoloni

   
   

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

    Private View Friday 25th October 6pm till late

   
   

    Continuing Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th  October

   
    12 mid-day to 5pm

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

    It was unanimous - makers should make...... and so construction of the Tower began.

   
   

    During this time, discussions took place - the makers debated. All ideas were embraced  and moulded into the rock.

   
   

    Then it was complete, its original forms changed beyond use and recognition. The most  important thing though, is that it was made.

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

    The Tower is an immersive sculpture; you are invited to put your head inside and explore  the sculptures and paintings within.

   
   

   
   

   
   

    Arnold studied Fine Art at UWE then worked in television, for a time, as a prop maker to support his practice.  Much of his work looks at the nature and purpose of art and the role of the artist within society.

   
   

    www.MatthewRoyArnold.co.uk