18/7/2003
Recognition: Part Two
Arnolfini, Bristol
The first opportunity to see a major body of the artists' work, Recognition: Part Two brings together two artists who share an engagement with drawing: Edwina Ashton and David Mackintosh.
The first opportunity to see a major body of the artists' work, Recognition: Part Two brings together two artists who share an engagement with drawing that centres on the potential of the pictorial image to mix bleak isolation and dark humour into a compelling exploration of the human condition.
David Mackintosh creates simple drawings with a brush and black gouache, which are sometimes translated into large marquetry panels or basic plywood sculptures. Their visual immediacy contrasts with the bleakness of their worldview: brooding fiends sit next to melancholy clowns, the machinery of war mixes with urban banality; and the natural world is overwritten with misanthropic slogans.
In contrast to Mackintosh's stark consistency, Ashton's universe is warped and beautiful by turns, brought to life in an energetic combination of fluid watercolour, nervous pen-work and precise pencil studies. Her world is populated with animals and individuals who through their physical and psychological isolation demonstrate the failure of our struggle to successfully interact.
The exhibitions by all four artists will be documented in a book to be published in September.
Recognition is curated by Simon Morrissey and Arnolfini.
Image: David Mackintosh, This beautiful bird will die, 2003
Arnolfini
16 Narrow Quay
Bristol
tel. +44 (0)117 929 9191
fax. +44 (0)117 925 3876