WYSING ARTS CONTEMPORARY: EXPANDED

Julie Brenot, Lucy Conochie, David Kefford, Lee Marshall Launch event: Saturday 21 November 4-6.30pm Special guest speaker: Paul Hobson, Director, Contemporary Arts Society EXPANDED is the third exhibition as part of the Wysing Arts Contemporary series. Wysing Arts Contemporary is an initiative that aims to show that working commercially with artists not only provides an opportunity to purchase exciting and affordable new work, but also that buying art can positively impact on the careers of emerging artists. The artists selected for EXPANDED explore the boundaries between painting and sculpture, the image and the object. In Julie Brenot’s work one image forms a starting point for a series of expansions; an urban landscape is reduced to a graphic image and then expanded and abstracted through a series of drawings and paintings until finally an environment is achieved. In David Kefford’s drawings, sculptures and montages, idiosyncratic objects and images are brought together to create individual objects that ‘speak’ to one another within the framework of the gallery space. Lucy Conochie takes architectural details as the starting point of her expanded paintings, painting directly onto walls and other surfaces. Lee Marshall’s paintings draw on the techniques of street art; tag-like motifs, such as the cloud, rainbow and prism. In his work references from graphic design, advertising, computer games and comics are drawn together in large scale immersive environments composed of individual painting and sculptures. EXPANDED coincides with the launch of Own Art at Wysing Arts Centre. The scheme, facilitated by the Arts Council, enables Wysing to offer interest free loans for the purchase of artwork - both from the exhibition and also all year round from the studio artists based at Wysing Arts Centre. www.artscouncil.org.uk/ownart/ Wysing Arts Contemporary is the trading arm of Wysing Arts Centre. Artists receive 75% of sales, the remaining 25% commission being re-invested into Wysing’s artistic programme. Wysing has also set up it’s own Collectors Collective. As part of the commitment to developing a commercial model unique to the centre, Wysing Arts Centre will exhibit a work by FREEE art collective at Zoo Art Fair 2009 (16-19 October).