Simon woolham: Dark corner

18 june – 26 July 2008

Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans

Gallery Opening Times: 11am – 5pm Wednesday to Saturday

Opening Reception: Tuesday 17 June 6pm – 8pm

 University of Hertfordshire Galleries is delighted to present an exhibition of drawings, animations and ‘paper cut’ interventions by Simon Woolham. Dark Corner features site-specific paper interventions highlighting hidden narratives by reacting to the gallery’s architectural features. Woolham also insists that the marks and detritus of the preceding exhibition are left in place for his project to respond to. The exhibition will include an animation produced specially for the St Albans Festival, which the artist will be developing during a short residency at the Town Hall in partnership with STARTS. The residency will take place in the first weekend of the show (21 June – 22 June 11am to 5pm).  Woolham’s work is concerned primarily with occupied spaces and the narratives that unfold within them. In his attempts to unearth this unpredictable and fragile process of memory, Woolham uses biro drawings, models, animation, video and text, all of which can be seen at the St Alban’s show.  More recently he has made a series of models, films, animations and text that focus on recurring motifs that often feature in his work, ditches, unofficial dumps and breached security fences. The films bring to life a series of landscapes that are digitally manipulated, coloured and made to move.  A title screen announces each scene within the film or animation, outdoor scenes are then modified to show some minor action in repetitive motion. These subtle movements such as a falling roof or creaking fence draw humorous attention to the miniscule, the enhanced sound of each action dramatising life’s kinetic force. Woolham’s work is unassuming, quite often made from simple materials and with seemingly modest aspirations. He believes ‘it is the material’s ordinary qualities, however, that charges them with emotion. Woolhams’animations are irreducibly, irrevocably unsettling.’ and include a range of experiences from humiliation to innocent play, rejection and failure, as well as fantasy and adventure. They are as sweet as other people’s children and as deadly as your own worst memories. Since graduating from Chelsea College of Art with an M.A. in 2000 Woolham has had shows and residencies both nationally and internationally. Most recently he has been commissioned by Animate and RSA Arts and Ecology, and has made new site-specific work for the Tatton Park Biennial. For further information please contact Amisha Karia on 01707 284290 or a.1.karia@herts.ac.uk