- Venue
- West Wharf Gallery
- Location
- Wales
In-between two floors of Jacobs antiques market, filled with nic nacs, paintings and ornaments and the calm roof terrace overlooking the city lies No.4, the 4th instalment in the B I T studios program. Taking over the gallery space and filling it with art, performance, fashion and music, the one-day event embodies the artist studio ethos; the space becomes a vehicle for potential and collaborations.
Potential is embedded in Bob Gelsthorpes Ideas for Future Works where ideas for future projects, paintings and actions are listed and displayed across the gallery wall in varying sizes. Each project is outlined in a short paragraph, leaving the viewer to imagine and create a mental piece of artwork. Each piece of writing carries the potential for multiple imaginings but with the core themes outlined.
The exhibiting work is formed between members of the studio and an open call for artists. Work selected from open calls can often create inconsistency and an incoherence throughout the exhibition, however through careful curation, each piece in no.4 works in harmony with the surrounding works and space, with incidental relationships emerging. Works that seem previously seem unrelated can open up a dialogue.
Sera Wyn Walkers Animal Vegetable Mineral is juxtaposed against Geraint Evans Bingo Hall: A Cathedral of Fleeting Aspirations. The natural forms in Walkers photograms are at odds with the cultural phenomenon depicted in Evans meticulously drawn tableau. The expansive panorama of the Bingo Hall stands in for a sign of the cultural times. The extended drawing clashes with the micro study of natural forms, creating a dialogue between the natural and cultural, one at small scale, the other depicted as ever expanding bringing to mind the gap forming between these two interdependent forms.
Charlie Spearing’s Untitled prints present an amalgamation of animals and drawings to create completely new hybrid forms. In one image, the head of a flamingo is extended onto a human body but with the legs of a different bird to create a new species altogether.
In Antarctica Sara Rees mixes archival images and re-presents them into bleak Antarctic tundra. The expansive white landscape is punctured by what appears to be a figure from an old family photograph, a symbol of warmth in this inhospitable landscape. There is a feel of ambiguity in the images; the figure sits uneasily in this unknown landscape.
Spearing and Rees both operate in a field of ambiguity, mixing the known with the unknown to create new tableaus and uncertainty. It is within this anthropological uncertainty that the images operate, leading the viewers to ask wider questions about our own relationships to nature, ecology and technology.
Within the second gallery space, a series of paintings from different artists are displayed together coherently. Displayed with complimentary colour palettes each painting creates a compositional balance within the space. The vivid oranges in Black, Whistleblower, Orange by Ifan Lewis Lewis work in balance with the bright pinks in Julep by Martyn Jones and the muted colours of Recline and then Dissolve by Serena Boheimer. The rhythm is broken up by the mixed media piece Oil by Coke Oak as a palm tree obscures the path, mixing Eastern and Western symbology through a variety of mediums including paintings, installation and neons.
James Green presents 3 small paintings, displayed on a large wall, which draws the viewer closer to the portraits. The images reveal masks titled Purple Drank Mask, Box Faced Killah and Cubist Hockney Head. Masks often operate on a cultural level as a symbol of a particular society embedded with meaning. These portraits act as artefacts of contemporary culture, mixing references from art history and pop culture.
Sculpture is used effectively to punctuate each vast space. Within the section of paintings, a Kristian Vaughan Adkins Jug sits central in the space, a utilitarian object half glazed in green.
Arthur Goodfellow displays Untitled, a triptych of grey cubes indented and misshaped. The perfectly formed shapes have been subjected to a blunt trauma, the effects visible upon the shape; a mark of a creative violent act renders a lasting impression upon the object. The objects offer a counter balance to their wall mounted counterparts. Adkins Jug sits in opposition to the paintings, its functionality in opposition to the aesthetics of the painted surface.
The dimensionality of Goodfellows cubes sits in contrast to its wall mounted neighbours, offering the space a three dimensional physicality. The imperfection of the shape diverges from the perfectly framed and presented images sitting near it.
Alongside the artwork, performance and fashion are displayed. Within the main gallery space lies two amps and a microphone that quietly buzz within the space. Whilst unoccupied, the stage acts as a space embedded with energy and potential, which becomes fulfilled with the arrival of the performers who took to the stage throughout the day.
Upstairs in the conservatory sits Y Cwmni, a performance group. Y Cwmni translates to company in Welsh and as you enter the space they embody this meaning. As I sat down, I was offered to have my portrait drawn, was sung too and told stories. The line between viewer and participant is broken as they interact within the space, inviting you to participate and become part of the performance.
No.4 is a testament to the possibilities of what an artist run studio can accomplish, fostering a community of artists and working across different platforms, merging art, performance, music and fashion. The freedom of the studio allows experimentation, to try out new formulas and ideas; No.4 embodies these notions and extends the studio into the gallery space.
