opening hours and how to find the gallery
identikit is an exhibition of work by 20 international artists curated by Brendan Murphy and includes works by Michael Ballard, Marco Calí, Sergio Cruz, Sara Dell’Onze, Claire Deniau, Marcin Dudek, Francesca Galeazzi, Judy Goldhill, Esther Jervis, Lydia Maria Julien, Sophie Loss, Brendan Murphy, Maureen O’Brien, Verónica Pérez Karleson, Shelley Rae, Lara Ritosa-Roberts, Joanna Salter, Cally Trench, Alvin Watt and Mary Yacoob.
Identity is at once mutable and fragmented. It is also constantly developing. In 2006, where there appears to be no critical authority to which the production of art must answer, it is arguably the most interesting artists who respond to, and reflect, the social and cultural climate of our time. As notions of identity continue to prove impossible to define, and the British Government pushes forward with its much criticised identity card proposals, we are all challenged to question more and more the nature of identity and personal freedom.
identikit suggests the attempt to build an entire picture or isolate a singular preoccupation. This, however, is not the case. As we witness constant interventions in our daily lives we are only ever afforded glimpses. As witnesses, we rarely fully understand what we see, and as artists, we are rarely able to fully describe what it is that we have seen. What is most compelling about the works in this exhibition is the diversity of materials, strategy, and process. These hybrid practices that draw on memories, dreams, interventions, and role-play as much as they do on social and religious traditions or conventions, demonstrate how any form of consensus remains elusive. The most we can do is catch a glimpse of the wealth and complexity of the components which go together to form individual identities and experience. We are encouraged to fill in the gaps ourselves.
tel: 0207 624 4049
e-mail: brendan.murphy@virgin.net
MIKE BALLARD
(uses Aliases)
AGE: 33, White/Male, 6’ 3”
Painter/Decorator
Gemini
PREVIOUS Criminal Damage, Trespass
CURRENTLY AT LARGE
MARCO CALI
Marco Cali’s work seeks to challenge his traditionally Western and largely Christian upbringing and surroundings with the aim of evoking a consciousness of personal experience that is less obviously dominated by these cultural or religious concerns.
SERGIO CRUZ
Sergio’s performance and video work explores corporeal art through investigating the body virtually and materially. In exposing the brand new set of relations that the body acquires through contact with new technologies and the development of virtual spaces and virtual representations, he establishes a rapport between art and technology defined by a timeframe set firmly in reality.
mailto:sergio.xx@gmail.com· 07908544559
SARA DELL’ONZE
Write a dream on my skin
Video performance installation
Write a dream on my skin is a 1 hour performance between 8pm and 9pm on thursday the 16th.
http://www.saky.co.uk/ · sara_saky@msn.com · 07815792915
CLAIRE DENIAU
Attachment I, II & III
Claire Deniau’s images are inspired by her French background
and memories. Her practice explores the relationship between death and desire.
Using food as a central thread, this investigation involves research into memory
and fetishism and the notions of attachment and obsession as a proof of
reality.
She uses a variety of media including cooking, photography, digital
manipulation and painting. These processes are often combined to offer us a
glimpse of the hidden or unconscious side of the still life.
deniau@wanadoo.fr · 07867780869
MARCIN DUDEK
Marcin Dudek’s work subverts the identity of everyday objects and his interventions create collages of our daily routines. Bus tickets, train tickets, supermarket receipts, all the insignificant evidence that reflects our existence, are decontextualised and given entirely new meanings within his work.
FRANCESCA GALEAZZI
Talk to me
Mixed media installation
This installation by Francesca Galeazzi aims to explore the notions of communication, memory and spirituality that constitute emotional experience. She creates a multi-dimensional diary or autobiographyas testimony to this experience, and that which remains in its aftermath.
http://www.francescagaleazzi.com/ · francesca_galeazzi@hotmail.com · 07779150812
JUDY GOLDHILL
Infinity Pool
Fine Art Prints
Judy Goldhill’s work is initially inspired by the evolving and shifting landscape with the aim of facilitating the retrieval of forgotten thoughts. It is through these memories of places and people that “we make connections between past, present and future and constantly reshape the fluid edges of our ongoing identity, the concept of belonging and otherness.”
ESTHER JERVIS
Sniper Polastes
C-type print
Donkey Girl
Mixed media sculpture
Pig Girl
Mixed media sculpture
The characters Esther Jervis creates are part human, part animal hybrids that draw on epic sagas with themes of transformation, loss and redemption. What is both beguiling and unsettling is their uncanny charm and playfulness. Each piece offers the viewer a glimpse of a character captured within a moment of its individual story and confronts us with a reality shaped by make-believe.
esther@jervism.freeserve.co.uk · 07961338801
LYDIA MARIA JULIEN
Untitled
Hand Printed Black & White Photographs
Lydia Maria Julien works in photographic sequences to create a sense of narrative and rhythm. These narratives transgress the confines and stereotypes of “otherness” to develop the ambiguous protagonist. Using only natural light and shadow to capture her images, Lydia hand prints each unique photograph to build intimate and personal biographies.
lydiamaria@mail.com · 07932485635
SOPHIE LOSS
“Johnny Depp and I have a history. In this work the divine Johnny is a screen image with which I want to communicate. I want Johnny to come to life and cross over to my space by removing the weight, burden of being inanimate. I like to think that reality is an effect of how it is represented and interpreted. But there are many realities. My quest is to unravel how those realities interact. While attempting entry to places and spaces not easily accessible I catch glimpses in my peripheral vision of identity behind the persona of Johnny Depp.”
BRENDAN MURPHY
Core
Primarily a painter, Brendan Murphy’s work explores the world of ghosts and the human traces we leave behind. Core is part of an ongoing engagement with fugitive materials and the extension of his painting into sculpture.
MAUREEN O’BRIEN
Here and There, Now and Then - the Making of an Identity
Maureen O’Brien’s work comprises collaged images which depict interventions in previously stable and familiar environments. They incorporate the “here and now” - a view of the River Thames from the window of her home, as well as the “there and then” - the constant bombardment of disturbing media images of violence and devastation and their challenge to her own sense of security and freedom.
mgcreasey@googlemail.com · 02075150503
Verónica Pérez Karleson
laaaotfohc
Language as an acknowledgement of the failure of human communication
Are you an independently thinking individual who just happens to choose to behave like everyone else around you? Or, is your identity manufactured? Does our society require standard individuals just as it requires standard commodities for mass production? If this is the case, how is a standard identity shaped? · more about laaaotfohc
grafeo.com · selfpropaganda@grafeo.com
SHELLEY RAE
Dress Rehearsal
Mixed media installation
Shelley Rae's work is presented as a series of fragmented images which encourages the viewer to create their own narrative. Inspired by cinema and performance, the work provides visual clues which create a sense of mystery, tension and foreboding. The text and pictures intend to explore the space between fact and fiction, highlighting issues of voyeurism, identity, and intimacy.
LARA RITOSA-ROBERTS
Happy Birthday Comrade President, 2005
DVD 3 min 20 sec
Sculpture and concept by Lara
Ritosa-Roberts
Filmed and directed by Sanna Maarit
Untitled, 2006
Concrete and acrylic
By reconstructing what she witnessed as a child in Communist Yugoslavia, Lara Ritosa-Roberts questions how much of her identity is determined by the system she grew up in. Her film of a sculptural event could be viewed as an assemblage of fragments of memory, and these fragments may or may not be close to historical truth. What is important is that they represent the physical manifestations of emotions she felt and still feels towards these lost times. Her sculptures are inspired by key visual parts of the system - mass stadium dances celebrating important state events, and monuments celebrating partisan heroes.
lritosaroberts@gmail.com · 07985331479
JOANNA SALTER
Joanna Salter’s work emerges from the struggle to capture and secure memory. “The photographic image is presumed a reliable documentation, however, it immediately distorts and destroys the memory the moment the picture is taken, although a reasonably accurate representation it cannot maintain the authenticity it desires. My installations are attempted recreations of a memory, a collaboration of time and events. The materials I use are ephemeral and threatened easily by destruction, whilst evoking memory, and having reference to the real.”
http://www.joannasalter.com/ · 07906732447
CALLY TRENCH
Bonfire
‘Bonfire’ is a painting of a landscape and a journey that Cally Trench knew as a child. It is painted from memory – and from imagination where memory ran out. The suburban scene of streets, houses, back gardens, reservoirs, and wasteland is shown from the distanced, overhead point of view of old memories. The painting makes reference to maps, miniature landscapes, surveillance video, and footage shot by bomber planes. It reflects the way that children look down on the worlds that they create and play with. Cally Trench is interested in two aspects of time: the memory of past time, and the time spent engaged in making a painting.
http://www.callytrench.co.uk/ · callytrench@robertrhill.fsnet.co.uk
ALVIN WATT
Untitled
Alvin Watt’s painting practice uses traditional means to explore and express identity. With this painting he examines the impact of intervention. For him a timeless dilemma emerges: Do we have the courage to go on, or should we leave it up to others to make a decision for us? The nature of the interventions that shape our identity can be seen as either physical or divine.
MARY YACOOB
Ruled-Based Doodles
Mary Yacoob’s work is based on drawing, sound recording and
photography and centres around the observation and notation of the habits and
routines that comprise daily life.
“For this exhibition I have created large
doodle-drawings whilst listening to the radio. The frequency of songs, speech
and adverts is used to generate a set of rules that determine the colour, size
and position of the images. In the drawings that follow, the workings of
imagination are captured within a set of boundaries, and chance operates within
a system.”
http://www.mary-yacoob.com/ · yacoobmary@hotmail.com · 07986853026
Weekly opening hours:
friday, saturday and sunday - 12pm to
6pm.
Other hours by appointment.
hosted by:
temporarycontemporary gallery
The Old Seager
Distillery
2nd Floor, Atlantic House
Brookmill Road
London SE8 4JT
Right next to Deptford Bridge DLR, across from Lewisham College, entrance on Brookmill Road.
| DLR | Deptford Bridge DLR |
| Tube | New Cross, New Cross Gate (East London line) |
| Rail | Deptford, New Cross, New Cross Gate (15 mins London Bridge, Charing Cross) |
| Bus | 177, 53, 453, 225, 47 |
Design by Verónica Pérez Karleson :: grafeo.com