Rob Churm

“The pursuit of experience is important above all: reason will always follow, its phosphorescent blindfold over its eyes.”

André Breton, ‘Crisis of the Object’ (1936)

Many of the influences that may be detected in Rob Churm’s intense monochromatic drawings seem to emanate from illicit places and borderline states of mind – atmospheres generated by venues where he has played, bars he has worked in and exhibitions he has helped to make happen. The various and often surreal scenes detailed by his pen are composed with equal parts energy and discipline: densely worked cross-hatching and detailed expressionistic forms are anchored by blank space and crisp graphics. The alternately noisy and quiet cadences of his work echo the assault of live performance and the quiet contemplation of the bedroom – and the practice of creative self-determination.

Sarah Lowndes, Phosphorescent Blindfold (2007)

courtesy Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow

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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2009 Ethanol Buzzgrid, GoMA, Glasgow*; Liste Art Fair, Basel (with Sorcha Dallas); Flugversuch mit Spurenkammer, Galerie Keinzle & Gmeiner, Berlin; Double A-Side: The Bootleg, Fred, London 2008 To bring forth and give, Glasgow Print Studio (curated by Sorcha Dallas); Harry Smith Anthology Remixed, CCA, Glasgow; run run, Collins Gallery, Glasgow; The Armory Show, New York (with Sorcha Dallas); Radar Eyes Art Show, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago 2007 Solo, Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow*; Double A-Side, Centre for Fine Art and Stedelijk Museum Hertogenbosch; DIY: Design It Yourself, The Changing Room, Stirling; Group Exibition, Whitechapel Project Space, London 2006 If Not Now, Broadway 1602, New York (curated by Sorcha Dallas. Supported by the British Council) 2005 Not These Tones, Glasgow Project Room* 2004 Group Exhibition, Mary Mary, Glasgow 2003 Cells Out, Old Bridgegate Court & Jail, Glasgow

* solo

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Thanks to:
Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow

Mick Peter

“Hyperbole! Can’t you arise
from memory, and triumph, grow
today a form of conjuration
robed in an iron folio?”

Stéphane Mallarmé, ‘Prose pour Des Esseintes’ (1884)

Mick Peter’s charisma has a lot to do with Des Esseintes’ manic-depressive personality. Peter’s creativity and spontaneous ability to go far beyond the frontiers of bourgeois good taste resembles Des Esseintes’ taste for the peculiar and sublime, and his violent rejection of the middle classes’ fashions and trends. Peter’s brutal and rude sculptural methods connect him to the likes of Martin Kippenberger and Franz West, who I always imagined as some deviant and egocentric country squires. Peter’s identity is divided, torn between the psyche of an urbane aristocrat and that of a bumpkin.

Lili Reynaud Dewar, 'The Rings of Saturn' (2004)

Courtesy the Author and The Changing Room, Stirling

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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2009 The Lumber Room, Galerie Crèvecoeur, Paris*; Harmonielehre, Zoo Galerie, Nantes*; Tropical Truth Circuit, Lausanne; N'importe Quoi, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon 2008 Harmonielehre, Generator Projects, Dundee*; Galerie de Multiples, Paris*; Moldenke Fiddles On, Glasgow Project Room*; Kunstwerk Bazaar, Outpost, Norwich (selected by Andrew Hunt) 2007 Yussopov Park, Fortescue Avenue/Jonathan Viner*, London; Freak Show, Museé d’Art Contemporain de Lyon 2006 Transmission Gallery, Glasgow*; 1,2,3,4 Workplace Gallery, Newcastle; Flim Flam Cell Project Space, London 2005 Like It Matters, CCA, Glasgow; Open Garden, Fortescue Avenue/Jonathan Viner, London*; The Thinkables, Flaca, London 2004 They Made Nests Inside Men’s Sunday Hats, GSS Gallery, Glasgow*; The Rings of Saturn, The Changing Room, Stirling; Frieze Art Fair (with Transmission Gallery); Spacemakers, Lothringer Dreizehn, Munich 2003 Vathek Print Works, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow*; Nursery World, Galerie Jennifer Flay, Paris 2002 Call For Entry, Market Gallery, Glasgow; Decerebrator, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh 2001 Ways of Doing the Night, Tramway, Glasgow; Angel Dust, Intermedia, Glasgow; 2000 New Work Scotland, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh; New Contemporaries, Milton Keynes Gallery, Cornerhouse and Inverleith House

* solo

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Thanks to:
Galerie Crèvecoeur, Paris
Zoo Galerie, Nantes

Owen Piper

“I feel like doing nothing.
I don’t feel like riding. It’s too much movement.
I don’t feel like walking. It is too tiring.”

S. A. Kierkegaard

There is a Kierkegaardian vibe in Owen Piper’s work and it probably has to do with the way he endorses his own melancholy. He is never complaisant towards it. On the contrary, with his morose moods, Piper experiences the type of culpability only derisive minds can be capable of, and turns them into something restrained and significant, if not logical. His use of simplified procedures, his rejection of effects, his taste for simple, even innocuous materials and neutral colours make his approach altogether diabolically synthetic and sympathetic towards its audience.

Lili Reynaud Dewar, 'The Rings of Saturn' (2004)

Courtesy the Author and The Changing Room, Stirling

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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2009 Mostly Modern, Private Flat, Glasgow*; Dia Nacional Del Consumo, Muller n° 37, Santiago, Chile 2008 Glasgow Open Doors, St Georges Tron Curch, Glasgow* 2007 Project Room, Glasgow*; Half Square Half Crazy, Villa Arson, Nice 2006 1234, Workplace Gallery, Gateshead; The Armory Show, New York (with Transmission Gallery) 2005 Kritische Gesellschaften, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; The Thinkables, Flaca, London 2004 Kaiserpassage 16/21a, Karlsruhe*; Open & Closed, MTV, London; The Rings of Saturn, The Changing Room, Stirling; Inbox: Glasgow, Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City 2003 MFA Glasgow, Tent – Witte de With Museum, Rotterdam; MFA Glasgow, MFA degree show, Tramway, Glasgow; Busco similar, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh; Made Up, Seven Seven, London 2002 You Never Know, The Project Room, Glasgow; Jet-Trash, Where The Monkey Sleeps, Glasgow; Interim Show, Macintosh and Newbury Galleries, GSA, Glasgow 2001 Closed, 431 Fulham Road, London 2000 Flatfiles, Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn, New York 1999 Degree Show, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne; Not Now, Never, Long Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne 1998 Double Cross, Long Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne 1997 Work in Progress, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne

*solo

David Sherry

David Sherry's work is a comedy of manners composed with the lightest of touches - by doing as little as possible he always seems to be on the verge of a great anthropological revelation.
[…]
Sherry doesn't offer any crude agitational catharsis, manifesto for cultural renewal or hot tips for political emancipation, rather he develops something closer to a social crisis that stops short of a genuine breakdown - all the hallmarks of great black humour.
[…]
Sherry's performances, in this sense, subtly test the patience and sympathies of the general public who witness them and as such allow him to examine the limits of the social contract. In many of his works his deliberately half-hearted effort to dissent from social codes can transgress gently into the anti-social.

Neil Mulholland, Open Frequency (2007)

Courtesy:

neilmulholland.co.uk

axisweb.org

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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2009 Bad Faith, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Glucksman Gallery, Cork; Grin and Bear it: The Salford restoration office, Manchester; Factory, MoBY, Israel; Liste Art Fair, performance project 2008 Futures 50, Axis, Leeds; Zoo Art Fair*; The Embassy Edinburgh 2007 Poetical & Political, Kunsthalle Tallinn; Home made, Dublin; Intermedia Glasgow*; Evergreene, Geneva; Regulations for Irrational Procedures, Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin*; Kunstverein Passau, Germany 2006 Catalyst Arts Belfast*; Villa Concordia, Germany*; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin; Workplace Gallery, Newcastle; Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin 2005 Info Retreat, Maes and Matthys Gallery, Antwerp*; Flaca, London; Jack Hanley, San Francisco* 2004 Christmas visions, BBC 3 Commission; I don't know my name, Tart Contemporary, San Francisco; Afterhours with Glassbox, Paris; I’m trying to tell you I love you, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin and The Three Walls Gallery, Chicago 2003 GoMA, Glasgow*; Schnittraum Cologne, Germany*; Natural Situation, Collective Gallery Edinburgh*; Gagosian London group show; Zenomap at the Venice Biennale; Beck’s Futures at the ICA London, CCA Glasgow and Southampton; Walking on art, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg; Galerie Jennifer Flay, Paris; Signal, Malmo 2002 Thoughts of the Unknown, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow* 2001 The October Project, St.Vincent Street, Glasgow; Comfortably Being Alive, Tramway, Glasgow*

* solo

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Thanks to:
Mother's Tankstation, Dublin
Scottish Arts Council