Release @ Surface Gallery
Chris Wharton, Mellissa Victoria Athorne, Tess Reilly, Dan Iley, Oliver Seamarks, Elliot Riordan, Alex Mortimer, Vivek Vadoliya and Jono Renton
May 20th to June 1st 2012
Private View: Monday 21st May 8 - 10pm
Release is Nottingham Trent University’s 16th annual Photography Festival. As this year’s graduating class, we are proud to present the culmination of three years of hard work and growth as creative individuals. With a community of over a hundred students we represent the multi-faceted nature of contemporary photographic practice; something which is evidenced in the festival.
www.releasephotofestival.com
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P A L O M A R
Kate Brigden, Dylan Shipton, Pippa Gatty
June 14th to June 27th 2012
14th – 27th June 2012
Private View 13th June 6 – 8pm
‘In identifying a constellation the decisive proof is to see how it answers when you call it. More convincing than the matching of distances and configurations with those marked on the chart is the reply that the luminous dot gives to the name by which it has been called, its promptness in responding to that sound, becoming one with it’ Mr. Palomar (Vintage classics 1999 page 41)
‘Palomar’ takes it name from the 1983, Italo Calvino novel, Mr. Palomar. Through the eyes of the title character, the reader goes on a journey of mundane but highly individual and profound musings. Mr. Palomar tries to explain and define his own existence by trying to find order and reason in the complex and chaotic world around him, thus highlighting the mind’s need to break the natural world up into neat categories, so enabling us to understand how it is all put together.
This exhibition will be based on ideas of observation and perception, and brings together the work of Kate Brigden, Dylan Shipton and Pippa Gatty.
Dylan Shipton’s work consists of re-modeling the construction of the gallery space creating large-scale architectural interventions. Shipton will be building a ‘Viewing Structure’ or ‘Observatory’. Built bespokely for the other pieces but also existing as an artworks itself, it will serve as an environmental framework and counter-point for the artworks to react with and against.
Kate Brigden‘s paintings will be housed in Shipton’s structure. These paintings and objects will be embedded into the interior of the structure itself and will allow for a more intimate engagement with the works, Brigden’s paintings are created from the perspective of how things are visually perceived rather than what is objectively ‘real’, adopting the use of memory and imagination. Horizons, skies, objects, landmarks, celestial objects and natural phenomena jostle with each other on the painting surface.
Pippa Gatty will show video work. These will be projected out from Shipton’s structure onto the walls of the gallery to form an outer atmosphere, be it a simulated one, that will that will shroud the exhibition space. Gatty’s video work uses low tech methods and a layman’s scientific understanding to Interpret and recreate terrestrial and cosmic phenomena and events.
Each artist’s work will envelop the others and it is the hope, that the viewer will adopt the position of Mr. Palomar by trying to decipher and discover meaning within the artworks themselves. This cross-pollination between all the artworks adds another layer for the viewer to mentally and sometimes physically negotiate. The result is a breaking down of the so-called ‘neutrality’ of the gallery space and the shifting of boundaries between one artwork and another. The hope is for a more sensory experience for the viewer, one that offers the possibility of new discoveries.
