Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan. The exhibition presents a large scale patterned pyramid, with a crudely cut out face shown together with a series of framed picture works that offered possible stories that might account for this work.
Works on paper. Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan
In January 2005, Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan embarked on a period of
open ended research activity commissioned by Studio Voltaire. This research
was intended as a kind of supplement, or response, to the artists project at
Studio Voltaire, Oh we will, we will, will we.
Oh we will, we will, will we consisted of a large scale patterned pyramid,
with a crudely cut out face, constructed in Studio Voltaire's exhibition
space. This was shown together with a series of framed picture works that
offered possible stories that might account for this work. The exhibition
was an opportunity for the artists to frame and re-present particular motifs
from within their practice, re-appropriating their own work to create some
sort of other system for meaning or for thinking about meaning. The
exhibition at Studio Voltaire presented a particular narrative spectacle
that offered the viewer no easy resolution of understanding.
The research activity has given Tatham and O'Sullivan a further opportunity
to re-think and re-frame the grammar of their practice. Since last January
they have been involved in researching their own archive from the last ten
years and re-considering the notes, collages and working drawings that are
the residue of their working process.
These artefacts will be displayed in another studio context in the small
coastal village of Catterline in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. 'The Watchie' was
originally the studio of the East Coast artists Joan Eardley and Lil Nielson
and retains a strong sense of their inhabitation. The exhibition of Tatham
and O'Sullivan's works on paper at the Watchie is called 'The Pyramid'.
Through this juxtaposition of practices it is hoped 'The Pyramid' will be a
complex meditation on the construction of narrative of an artists practice,
interlacing different times, geographies and imaginations.
A poster and text designed and written by the artist Fiona Jardine accompany
'The Pyramid'. Jardine has been involved in the research activity since last
January and has created a narrative and imaginative space through the
construction of a composite fiction.
Joanne Tatham and Tom O¹Sullivan are based in Glasgow. Their most recent
solo exhibitions and projects are Oh we will, we will, will we, Studio
Voltaire, 2005, The Slapstick Mystics with Sticks, Frieze Art Fair
Commission, London, 2004; and Think Thingamajig and Other Things, Kunsthaus
Glarus, Switzerland, 2003. Group exhibitions include Selective Memory,
Scottish Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2005 and My head is on fire, but my
heart is full of love, Charlottenburg Museum, Copenhagen, 2002.
Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan are represented by The Modern Institute,
Glasgow and Sutton Lane, London.
With special thanks to Ann Steed
Offsite:
The Watchie, Catterline, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
19th - 28th February 2006, view by appointment 01569 750369
Opening Sunday 19th February, 2pm - 4pm
Studio Voltaire
1a Nelson's Row - London