The exhibition features inspiring and thought-provoking art that has been selected from over 600 international applications. Work by Tristram Aver, Nicola Ellis, Kate Sully and Liz West.
Curated by Elizabeth Gibson, Alex Leigh, Neetu Roy
Cornerhouse is pleased to announce FOUR, an exhibition of four new
commissions specifically created for the show including work by Tristram
Aver, Nicola Ellis, Kate Sully and Liz West.
Curated and developed by
Cornerhouse’s Young Curators team, three talented people from the Greater
Manchester region, FOUR will feature inspiring and thought-provoking art that
has been carefully selected from over 600 international applications.
Cornerhouse’s Creative Stars were hugely successful with their 2012 exhibition Lost
is Found, which attracted more than 4,000 visitors. Three of the budding curators
from the Creative Stars team recently devised an open call to enable four artists to
realise a new work to a budget of £1,000 apiece. Elizabeth Gibson (18), Alex Leigh
(17) and Neetu Roy (17) received hundreds of artist applications from all over the
world, presenting the team with an exceptionally exciting and challenging task.
Tristram Aver’s commission will generate an altered, condensed view of British
contemporary urban living saturated by advertising slogans, technology and the way
we view our world via the Internet. His practice examines the volume of visual
information we are bombarded with daily in this digital age, sampling common
figurative, cultural and commercial iconography and re-analysing their original
context and associated meaning with strong reference to 19th century British still life,
animal portrait and landscape painting.
When translated to the canvas the forms take
on a new momentum, and the process of applying paint becomes paramount to the
evolution of the imagery – subject to distortion, repetition, compression and
corruption as each layer is applied, resulting in recognisable and chimeric forms that
uncomfortably fit in the world.
Nicola Ellis create a large-scale interactive and organic sculpture made from
irregular shaped paddlestones that appears to have been plucked right out of nature,
provoking close inspection and tempting physical contact. The artist has a keen
interest in the synchronisation of the natural with the artificial. Drawing and printing
are used to expose aspects of materiality inherent in synthetic materials. Sculptural
objects are then produced, combining these material experiences with processes
that play with physical control.
The subjects of these objects evolve over time
according to the environment in which they are positioned, and the production of
other sculpture, drawings and prints that contextualise them within Ellis’ practice.
Kate Sully examines the manipulation and exploration of familiar shapes and
themes, re-investing them with contemporary issues to tell a new, engaging story.
Often employing a mixed-media approach, the marriage of concept and material
culminates in an innovative and challenging collection of work. For FOUR, Sully will
develop a series of sculptural mixed-media pieces inspired by the concept of
cultivation and growth usually found in a science lab. She’ll use a variety of
processes and techniques that fabricate prodigious petri dishes, exploring the notion
that we can take elements of our world and reinvent them through our desire to
control and manipulate.
Liz West creates sensory experiences in the form of richly saturated installations that
immerse the viewer in a kaleidoscopic or optical environment, continually searching
and collecting coloured objects ranging throughout the spectrum. Her new work will
reference the domestic, presenting a vessel of a second-hand wooden wardrobe
allowing the viewer a glimpse through the partially open doors.
Inside, a video work
will be mirrored to infinity, creating an immeasurable landscape within the wardrobe,
alongside an endless expanse of single-colour objects that will glimmer and entice
audiences to look further. The piece will continue the artist’s investigation into the
use of physical constructs to experience the viewer’s own emotional and
psychological relationships with colour.
Young Curators: Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson grew up in Wigan and is now a student of French and Spanish at the University of
Manchester. Her love for language includes her native English and she has written all her life with
published work in her local youth press, UK nationwide magazine Your Cat and on the RSPB’s
website. In 2012 she was a reporter for the Manchester Literature Festival.
Gibson is also a keen
photographer and filmmaker; in 2011 she was a semi-finalist in her age category in the Veolia
Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Elizabeth is a recipient of the Sixth Form Colleges
Forum Student Award for International Understanding, which recognises her linguistic ability and her
language-related community work and volunteering. Liz was one of Cornerhouse’s young Creative
Stars in 2011 and 2012, and co-curated Lost is Found. She was also on the documentation team for
the exhibition, and blogged on the process on the Cornerhouse website.
Young Curators: Alex Leigh
Alex Leigh is currently studying A level Art, History and Graphics at Thornleigh Sixth Form College.
He previously co-curated successful exhibition Lost is Found at Cornerhouse in 2012 and exhibited in
Bolton museums open call exhibition 2011-2012. He is looking to study art at university and aspires to
work as a full time practising artist.
Young Curators: Neetu Roy
Neetu Roy is a student at Manchester High School for Girls, juggling Fine Art, Chemistry, Biology and
Spanish at A-level. She was a member of the curatorial team for Cornerhouse exhibition Lost is
Found (2012). Roy aspires to study Medicine with Spanish at university but hopes to continue
practicing art in her spare time. Her work has been exhibited in the Living Edge Arts Festival 2012
and her goal in life is to explore as much of the world as she can and document all which is wonderful
and interesting through photography and painting.
Tristram Aver
Tristram Aver is an artist and curator based in Nottingham, UK. Aver has been involved in a range of
activities, including creating album/single cover artwork for The Cooper Temple Clause breakthrough
album Kick Up The Fire and Let The Flames Break Loose and producing visuals for BBC projects.
Aver has been Chairman and studio holder at OpenHand Open Space Gallery and he is currently a Curator at Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery and studio member of 3 Space Studios,
Sherwood.
Recent group exhibitions include YOU CAN TELL ME!, Factory-Art Gallery, Berlin (2012),
Mind The Gap, IDM Gallery, Busan, Korea (2012), Mind The Gap, Lotte Gallery Jamsil, Seoul, Korea
(2012), Nature or Nurture - Tristram Aver and Michael O'Reilly, GX Gallery, London, WW Solo
Award, WW Gallery, London, and Culture Cloud, New Art Exchange, Nottingham. His work also
features in private collections including the Bayswater Media Group, London, and The Stremmel
Gallery Collection, Reno, Nevada.
Nicola Ellis
Nicola Ellis lives and works in Manchester. She is a recent graduate of MA Fine Art from Manchester
School of Art and studied BA Fine Art at UCLAN previous to this. Recent group exhibitions
include Meanwhile see this at Castlefield Gallery Manchester UK 2012. Neo: artsprize 2012, Bolton
UK, Part of the Programme, FAFA Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, 2012. Cabedal, Plataforma Revolver,
Lisbon Portugal. 2012. Secs and Death Cells, The Hive, Manchester 2011. Awards include Best
Young Artist at Cow Lane Open 2012, Salford, UK. Solo exhibitions include Full Circle, P.A.D
Preston, UK 2009.
Kate Sully
Kate Sully lives and works in Sheffield, UK and is currently working as a professional artist and
facilitator in a range of community and educational settings. After completing a degree in Ceramics
and then a MA in Fine Art in Cardiff Sully has developed her practice using a wide range of materials
and techniques. The artist employs the use of digitally printed imagery to create large-scale sculptural
pieces that mix art form to fabricate colourful, rich and engaging work that often uses familiar forms
and objects but reinvests them with new contemporary meaning. Sully has exhibited widely both
regionally and nationally and received numerous awards and commissions. She is currently
developing ideas for a new collection of work and is applying for a research and development grant
from Arts Council England.
Liz West
Liz West (b.1985) lives and works in Manchester, UK. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in
2007, with a BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art: Sculpture and Environmental Art. Since then she has
exhibited her work both nationally and internationally. Selected group exhibitions include: Stew
Gallery, Norwich (2010), Core Gallery, London (2010),The Minerva Gallery, Chichester (2010),The
Invisible Dog, New York, (2010), Elevator Gallery, London (2011), Wolstenholme Creative Space,
Liverpool (2012),Wiseman Gallery, Oregon (2012) and Untitled BCN, Barcelona (2012). In 2010 West
was shortlisted for the Celeste Prize, New York, London Photography Award, London and
commissioned to create a new site-specific work for Northern Futures awards, Barnsley. In 2011 she
was shortlisted for the Woolgather Art Prize, Leeds and The Title Art Prize, Manchester. In 2012 West
was awarded Grants for the Arts funding by Arts Council England towards her first major solo
exhibition Chroma.
About Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse is Greater Manchester’s centre for international contemporary visual art and film. A
place where all can engage with contemporary ideas through a unique, risk taking, cross art-form and
culturally diverse high quality programme of art and film.
For further information please contact: Elisa Ruff, Media & Communications Officer
on E: elisa.ruff@cornerhouse.org, T: + 44 (0)161 200 1529 or M: +44 (0)7852 191 752.
Opening: 26 January 2013
Cornerhouse
70 Oxford Street, Manchester
Gallery opening times: Mon: Closed, Tue – Sat: 12.00 – 20.00, Sun: 12.00 – 18.00
Ticket Prices
Matinees (before 17:00)
Full £5.50 / Concs £4
Cornerhouse Members £4.50 / £3
LiveWire Young People's Members (14 - 17 year olds) £3
Evenings (after 17:00)
Full £7.50 / Concs £5.50
Cornerhouse Members £6.50 / £4.50
LiveWire Young People's Members (14 - 17 year olds) £3