Wysing Arts Contemporary - ANIMATED

ANIMATED is the inaugural exhibition for our new initiative Wysing Arts Contemporary; three exhibitions a year focussing on selling art by emerging artists. Wysing Arts Contemporary is a development of our ongoing support to artists based at studios at Wysing and will focus mainly on promoting work by the studio artists, as well as invited artists based in the Eastern region. Through Wysing Arts Contemporary we aim to show that buying and collecting art can positively impact on the careers of artists.

ANIMATED is a playful and witty exploration of the everyday, by artists working and performing in vigorous and dynamic ways. Whether it is a small drawing, a silent animation, or a video installation, all the works explore notions of energy, movement, imagination and memory and invite the viewer to look at our everyday surroundings with fresh eyes. For this first exhibition in the Wysing Arts Contemporary series we have selected eight artists whose work is grounded in contemporary culture and prods and pokes at our everyday existence with a mischievousness and gentle humour.

Artists and Works

JO ADDISON. Based in London/Norwich, Addison is an artist who transforms ordinary, modest objects into imaginary alternatives, challenging our perceptions of our everyday surroundings. As tour guide, she invites the viewer to see the humour and elegance in the mis-spelt, the crossed-out, the improvised or the handmade. In the work Services, a cardboard turntable suggests perhaps a desolate landscape. Her juxtaposition of celebration, humour, the unsavoury and the commonplace becomes an uplifting experience.

JULIE BRENOT. Brenot, an artist based at Wysing Arts Centre, explores the territory between fiction and reality. Referencing visual, pop and music culture, she takes recognisable objects and alters them slightly. The featured works include a series of paintings and installations using already existing pictures, novels, vinyl records and posters which are then reinterpreted to tease, puzzle and deceive the viewer in a light hearted way. For example one work, If you think I don't know what you want me to do, she appropriates 9 novels of Vladimir Nabokov's "La transparence des choses", using the power and fascination it exerts on the viewer’s imagination.

MATT COOK. Cook, who is based in Colchester, works primarily in performance and sound. His work explores rhythmic structures in site-specific situations, capturing the daily cycle of everyday life, then animating it and replaying it back. His work invites us to observe, reconsider, question and appreciate the nuances of our everyday surroundings. In Map Wysing Event, a new work created for this exhibition, Cook spent 5 days at Wysing Arts Centre, exploring the countryside inside a circle of 5 miles in diameter around the centre, recording the sounds he heard on his walks. This new composition captures the everyday sounds of the local area.

SARAH EVANS. Evans, who is based at Wysing Arts Centre, investigates light, space, movement and time as it appears in nature, and then transforms it, creating new and imaginary environments using drawing, animation and sound. In infected with something beautiful: part one is a looping, hand drawn, color pencil, animation that has been created specifically for the iPod. The film is a low tech, silent, slight and playful intervention for what is a familiar contemporary audio technology, with the sense of sound inferred through rhythm, flow, pulse, and breath. Evans’ work reveals imaginary hidden places, creating chance encounters for the audience that imply the minuteness of what is known compared to the unknown.

SIMON LIDDIMENT. Liddiment, based in Norwich, works conceptually using diverse materials. Typically, his work takes the point of departure in familiar identities and materials, which he then manipulates discreetly, exploring the humour in everyday objects and playfully re-interpreting them. For example in the piece entitled One, he presents a visual pun with an economy that belies the painstaking and careful decision making process involved in creating the work. Or in another work Feint Horizon Liddiment has carefully redrawn an A4 ruled sheet on a larger piece of paper, framed in a solid box. By redrawing the note paper he is discreetly reinventing its daily function. Though still recognizable, the paper is all of a sudden suggesting a feint horizon.

ANNE_MIE MELIS. Melis who is based at Wysing Arts Centre, explores scientific, environmental and ethical issues in an objective and unbiased way using primarily drawing, sculpture, animation and photography. Focusing specifically on plants, she has been working with plant geneticists to explore the visual nature of genetically engineered plants. In the animation A Study into New Plant Kinetics, she explores the possibility of how our everyday surrounding plants might evolve and develop into something entirely different. Her playful yet slightly disturbing work falls somewhere between science and art, natural creation and interference, raising questions about the engineering of nature into a new world.

ALEX PEARL. Pearl is based in Woodbridge near Ipswich. His work explores the acceptance of failure or disappointment as important parts of the human condition. The works presented here are a mix of epic mini films, installation and sculpture that make light of big issues and are in turn both haunting and funny. In Sing, an animation film, a lollipop stick sings a haunting lullaby, yet there are five different versions, all performed separately on five different screens. Like an out of synch barbershop quartet, the work is playful yet acknowledges its own limitations and a hopeless desire for greatness.

SIMON WOOLHAM. Woolham, who is based at Wysing Arts Centre, is concerned with occupied spaces, the environment that surrounds us and the narratives that unfold within them. Through biro drawings and animations - of school playing fields, junked underpasses, broken fences, and worn paths – he unearths the unpredictable and fragile process of memory, bringing to life familiar scenes and motifs with humour and wit. In his pop-ups an often hilarious universe of grotesque stories and situations are made public. For example the pop-up work entitled We bought a load of fireworks and let them off in the sheds, it only went a bit wrong is made out of biro and the text highlights in a humorous way the fragility of human social behavior.

ABOUT WYSING ARTS CONTEMPORARY
Wysing Arts Contemporary is our approach to the collection and sale of contemporary visual art. It is a brand new initiative for Wysing Arts Centre, with three exhibitions per year and an ongoing series of events around collecting contemporary art.

Wysing Arts Contemporary provides a major new platform for artists working at the forefront of contemporary art practice. Our aim is to present some of the most exciting work being made in the East and give both an insight into contemporary art practice and offer the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the artists’ work. All the artists featured are based in the Eastern region and selected by Wysing Arts Centre’s Artists and Programmes Curator, Lotte Juul Petersen.

Wysing Arts Contemporary is run on not-for-profit principles, with income re-invested back into the centre. This enables us to continue to improve our facilities for artists and provide support to artists who are building their careers. Our nurturing ethos gives artists the creative space to develop their ideas in an environment that values artistic process above all else. This enables artists to innovate and push boundaries.

Animated was launched by Matthew Slotover, Director of Frieze Art Fair on Saturday 17 January followed by a performance by exhibiting artist Matt Cook.
Visit our Blog to hear Matthew's Launch speech. http://www.wysingartscentre.org/blogs/

http://www.friezeartfair.com/

PUBLIC TALKS that will provide the opportunity to discuss and share ideas around animation in contemporary art practice.

TALK by GARY THOMAS: Rescheduled due to Snow -NOW SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2-4pm
Talk by Gary Thomas, Co-Director of Animate Projects.
www.animateprojects.org/
Saturday 21 February 4-5pm
Performance by Sarah Evans & The McKenzie Break.
www.facebook.com/pages/The-McKenzie-Break/17180206933
Thursday 26 February 6-8pm
Talk by Adam Pugh, Director of Aurora Festival, Norwich.
www.aurora.org.uk/

ANIMATED runs Sunday 18 January – Sunday 1 March. Wysing is open every day from 12-5pm. Admission Free.