Olly Beck
Gordon Beswick
Katerina Botsari
Mikey Georgeson
Russell Herron
Alison Marchant
Liz Neal
Paul Tecklenberg
Harry Pye
Richard Taylor
Florin Ungureanu
Russell Herron
Marianne Spurr
Stewart Gough
The artists interact with sheds situated on a roof terrace overlooking Kings Cross. The shed is the intersection between the inside and outside, a British symbol of sanctuary that opens a new world of dreams and possibilities. With Olly Beck, Gordon Beswick, Katerina Botsari, Mikey Georgeson, Russell Herron, Alison Marchant, Liz Neal, Paul Tecklenberg, Harry Pye, Richard Taylor, Florin Ungureanu, Russell Herron; curated by Marianne Spurr and Stewart Gough.
With Olly Beck, Gordon Beswick, Katerina Botsari, Mikey Georgeson, Russell Herron, Alison Marchant, Liz Neal, Paul Tecklenberg, Harry Pye, Richard Taylor, Florin Ungureanu, Russell Herron
curated shed with Marianne Spurr and Stewart Gough.
To celebrate the beginning of British Summer, Sartorial Contemporary Art has invited artists to interact with 9 sheds situated on a roof terrace overlooking Kings Cross. THE SHED is the intersection between the inside and outside, a British symbol of sanctuary that opens a new world of dreams and possibilities.
Was the original gallery space making Gretta Sarfaty claustrophobic and trapped once more? She has been using the sheds as a space to store her many lives. Here past experiences are combined with new experimentation and transformation.
Harry Pye and Gordon Beswick are using their shed to screen two films; 'Trojan Horse' and 'Bring Back the Prince'. Both films feature music from a new band called, The Values. This shed is intended as a tribute to the 2-Tone record label. 2-Tone was the home of bands such as Madness, and The Specials from 1979 to1984. 2-Tone bands were famous for mixing pop with politics and their music often had an infectious ska beat.
Mikey Georgeson and Paul Tecklenberg in their collaborative piece 'A Matter Of Life and Death' - inspired by a National Trust street sign informing us that 'the interior is viewable through the window'.
Georgeson and Tecklenberg use common or garden birdboxes to play with ideas of inside and outside. They aim to both amuse and entrance visitors by channeling the spirit of accidental romanticism personified by Sir John Soanes and passion his for bringing light inside for it's ability to not only enlighten but also define the meloncholy of shadow.
Olly Beck's installation creates the illusion that liquid gold is seeping out of the shed and onto the floor around it. The work continues Beck's fascination with mirage-like imagery and in this particular piece explores capitalist economics and its manifest contradictions.
Katerina Botsari will be creating her sculptural piece from the leftover debris in the gallery, aptly named ‘Junk'. She will rejuvenate the old scrap and in doing so will challenge traditional perceptions of what is seen as beautiful
Russell Herron is a sometime artist, writer and curator. His work, often featuring his own name, alludes to ideas of history, place, identity, objects, value, authenticity, success, failure and the infrastructure of the artworld itself. He lives and works in London. For this exhibition he will be presenting a new work: ‘You Haven't Heard the Last of Me,' he said. That Was the Last We Heard of Him.
Alison Marchant super market shopping trolleys, baskets and other objects mounted on casters are used as planted spaces to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers which have the potential to be parked, suspended or placed any where in the city. The plants have been grown from seed in bio-degradable peat flower pots in her attic studio with sky light windows as a make shift greenhouse and art lab.
The installation is a kind of disturbing faux-supermarket that seeks to explore our relationship with the food we buy, and the endangered pollinating species that enable its production.
Liz Neal explains: "The shed evokes in me a warmth and nostalgia that is quite saturating . It takes me back to my childhood where there were many old sheds in which we enacted domestic scenes amongst ourselves and sometimes with other children. I would sometimes direct my older sister in theatrical performances, whilst my younger sister would be found in an old horse trailer mixing mud pies.
This shed is a mini house in which I have set my dolls to play".
Gretta Sarfaty says: "My past lifes are portrayed here with stuffed animals representing an outward appearance of happiness and togetherness. They are incorporated with famous faces of celebrities and dignitaries to give the impression of a united relationship; the viewer has to draw their own conclusion if this is indeed the case."
Richard Taylor will use a gestured approach to mark making to create a painting that reflects the vibrant, lyrical nature of Jimmy Cliff's music. “Beware of tigers and bad dogs” is an idea that stems from his artist-in-residence on Portobello Road where the artist has been capturing the immediacy and urgency of a glance across the market place, these visual and auditory experiences will be reflected in the painting.
Florin Ungureanu explores the concepts of power, politics, history, identity and death through irony and humour. Being interested in how they influence beliefs and perceptions by altering and subverting them.
From here derives the desire to further explore the need for uncertainty and the metaphysical loneliness of the human being, addressing such issues as solitude, amnesia, memory, suppression, doubt and the sublime.
Marianne Spurr and Stewart Gough (curated by Russell Herron)‘Various titles, but ultimately not titled.'
Two artists have been invited to show work, with Gough using only the exterior of the shed and Spurr the interior.
Gough's sculptures are playful assemblages of ready made plastic objects and component systems. For this show he has made a new temporary intervention. A guttering and drainage system has been attached to a section of the roof's run off, and this playfully morphs into a fantastical electrical storm fixed in a moment as it arcs to the ground.
Spurr employs a range of materials and objects to explore formal concerns and the interplay between abstract and figurative languages. She is interested in boundaries and the liminal spaces between them: painting and sculpture, nature and artifice, the real and the imagined, the absent and the present.
Image: Florin Ungureanu
Private View Saturday June 26th 18:00 - 21:00
Sartorial Contemporary Art
26 Argyle Square London WC1H 8AP
Open every Saturday from July 3 th to July 17th also throughout September and by appointment