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17/3/2007

Two exhibitions

Dilston Grove, London

Sybille Berger - Without Title
New Paintings and Sketches

This first London solo exhibition by the highly acclaimed German colour painter Sybille Berger features three new major works alongside recent paintings and related sketches.

By excluding any narrative element from her painting and letting the work speak for itself, her colours take on a reality outside of their own existence. The colour of a whole work becomes both concrete and abstract at the same time, making an impact both as a physical and metaphysical presence. These paintings speak to an intuitive receptive level within us, becoming like a projection surface for the observer.

Berger creates sketches which she makes on canvas at a small scale before choosing each idea. These are displayed in the Long Gallery alongside major works in the Main Space to demonstrate the relationship between the development of the ideas for each painting and the emphatic and pristine physical presence of the final works. Each individual piece of work has gradually become a play between three colours which have been built up upon the surface by successive layers of thin paint applied with paint rollers.

The first impression of Sybille Berger's paintings is that of darkly saturated colour planes arrayed on large square canvases across the walls of the Cafe Gallery. Upon closer inspection, however, we discover that each colour area within a work of three areas, has been constructed from a separate stretcher, six centimetres deep, and that these abutted horizontal objects form a mass of coloured volumes which is a little taller than it is broad. The larger central volume of each work which stilly draws the gaze, is flanked, top and bottom by narrower bands which the artist makes in such a way as to be reciprocally emphatic about their distinct relationship to it.

The specificity of Berger's colours derive from an experimental approach, which, whilst totally unique to the artist herself is nonetheless closer to that of Joseph Albers, than to say, Herman von Helmholtz or Wassily Kandinsky. Berger creates her palette as a contingent part of the painting process whereby each adjustment to the tone and colour of the large works is recorded. Prior to the application of the paint, Berger makes a large horizontal test strip on white paper using a loaded roller of acrylic and pigment. These strips are arranged in view as a material resource from which to cut out the tiny colour swatches, miniature horizontal bands about six centimetres across, that become the elements of the preparatory drawings and from which she chooses the ideas to be developed in the large paintings so forming a completed cycle of events.

Sybille Berger is represented by Galerie m Bochum, Bochum, Germany. Gallery Contact: David Allen Tel: +44 (0)20 7237 1230.

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Shona Illingworth
The Watch Man

The first international exhibition of The Watch Man, a major new installation by artist Shona Illingworth will take place within the atmospheric and powerfully evocative architecture of Dilston Grove, London.

Using video and sound, The Watch Man explores the conflict between trauma memory and the need for a coherent ‘life story’ through the experience of an 80 year old watchmaker, who as a 19 year old experienced one of the most deeply affecting and shocking events of the Second World War.

With successive generations living with the after effects of traumatic experience, this moving and evocative work reveals the personal impact of conflict on an individual over time. It is made in dialogue with neuro-psychologist Professor Martin A. Conway, whose internationally recognised expertise on trauma memory, confabulation and the role of memory in the formation of a sense of self has informed the complex structure of this work.

The video lingers on prosaic details of the watchmaker’s workshop and living space, gradually encapsulating an enclosed and disconnected world that is set in stark contrast to a dark, disrupting and persistent trauma memory. A complex sound composition will surround the viewer, locating sounds high above their heads and resonating through the charged, reflective surface of a specially constructed floor beneath their feet.

An International solo exhibition of The Watch Man will tour to Interaccess, Toronto featuring in the international Images Festival, 2007 and a Limited Edition Artist Book, made in collaboration with Professor Martin A. Conway, will be launched in Autumn 2007.

Shona Illingworth
Shona Illingworth is known for her powerful and evocative video and sound installations which explore the experience of memory and the formation of identity in situations of social tension. She has shown her work extensively in Europe, Canada and the UK. She has received a number of high profile awards including commissions for Channel 4 Television, the Hayward Gallery, London and the Wellcome Trust. She lives and works in London.
For more information on Shona click at - http://www.shonaillingworth.net

Professor Martin A. Conway
Professor Martin Conway is a neuro-psychologist and one of the foremost international experts in the field of Autobiographical Memory. His work explores the centrality of memory to our sense of self. He currently holds a prestigious ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Professorial Fellowship at Leeds University where he has established the new Memory Research Group. He has written extensively on Autobiographical Memory.

The Watch Man has been financially assisted by Arts Council England and supported by FeONIC plc

Image: Shona Illingworth

Private View - Sun 18th March 2007, from 2 to 5 pm.

Dilston Grove is London's most important raw space for installation and site specific art
southwest corner of Southwark Park, London SE16 2UA.
Open - Wed - Fri & Sun - 11 am - 5 pm, Sat - 12 - 5pm

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