Here are the Birmingham artists statements for our Re-place exhibition at the Works gallery in September. Attached is one of my proposed images from trip to Blackpool.
UK artists’ statements
Peter Grego – re-place exhibition
For the exhibition re-place, Peter Grego will be developing an ongoing project Heartlands. The intention is to expand beyond the two coalmining areas featured originally in Heartlands, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, to include all coalmining areas involved in the 1984 national strike.
Heartlands is a photographic installation produced originally for the exhibition Lost, which was shown at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago, Chile; in 2007. The work focuses on the dynamics of disruption and dislocation as a force in the shaping of new identities. The installation, in the form of a split-screen projection, explored the aftermath of a key moment in post-war British history; the 1984 miners strike, prompting questions about the loss of manufacturing communities and the shaping of post-industrial Britishness.
Pamina Stewart
In this work I have created a collection of humanoids from seashells. Since the early 1990's artists have used found objects as raw materials to engage with contemporary society through its bi-products
The creatures made from shells that most people are familiar with are either mass produced in Asia, or comical crafted objects made by children in the UK after seaside excursions. I grew up by the sea and spent much time gluing and painting collected beach treasure. They therefore have a duality of referencing home craft and the mass produced products of an increasingly globalised world.
The sculptures remind viewers of the classified zoological collections of the Victorian era and collected curiosities. While some viewers find the figures comical, an equal number find them sinister. With these figures I intend to give the viewer the space to imagine personalities.
Tom Ranahan
Birmingham is the most landlocked city in England and as such, it seems appropriate to exhibit photographs from Britain’s coastal extremities. A fish and chip in Borth, a rusting steel cylinder in the Orkney Isles, a talking telescope in Blackpool are examples of images that caught the artists attention during visits to these locations. Intuitively reacting to the environment, the weather conditions and the feeling of being an outsider, the artist produces work that is quirky and shrewdly observed.
Paula Woof
Paula Woof works mainly as a painter, but has also explored many other art forms. She has exhibited widely, both as a solo artist and in group shows such as the National Portrait Gallery portrait competition. After winning first prize in the Derby Open exhibition in 2007, her solo show "Remembered and Forgotten", which took place earlier this year, was enthusiastically received.
Among many other projects, she was artist in residence at Birmingham Markets, recording the lively hustle and bustle of the old Bullring before its redevelopment.
She is at present working on portraits and a series of still life paintings which celebrate subjects often overlooked and ignored.
