JOSEPHINE KING
'LIFE SO FAR'
Monday 13 September - Saturday 30 October
Click to download Josephine King exhibition book
For press-use hi-res images
pls contact Theresa Simon Communications: 7-734-4800
www.theresasimon.com
"This is a grim and terrible subject, and the fact that she has shown it as playful and child-like images make it more frightening. They seem to me to be totally truthful pictures, from the heart, and they frighten me. Brave girl. Many people will identify with these images" Paula Rego.
Josephine King (b.1965 London) makes ink-paintings on paper, a flat 'cut out and keep'-style portrait framed by text documenting the often traumatic experience of the artist's 'life so far'.
The subject of the work is King's extreme bi-polar mania, an illness which has plagued her all her life leading to several suicide attempts, whilst at the same time providing her with the subject matter for her art. The painting style is intensely colourful, almost a kind of pop Fauvism, featuring the artist in a variety of starched and patterned clothing often holding a 'prop' - knife, pills, tube of paint - though the work, rather than appearing depressing in any way is intimate, inspiring - apparently optimistic.
It is clear from the syntax of the compositions that King has an innate faculty for and interest in design, the poster layout of the paintings likely to have been influenced by the working environment of her father (the designer and photographer David King), though 'Life so Far' also reveals an interest in heightened stylisation - from haute couture and classical Indian portraiture to Victoriana, Art Nouveau and the decorative arts.
The Riflemaker book to accompany the Josephine King exhibition features an from Adrian Dannatt, writer, curator and correspondent for the Art Newspaper.
LIFE SO FAR is co-curated by Virginia Damtsa and Tot Taylor with Adrian Dannatt.
Art can still sometimes be a revelation. The first ever exhibition of 'paper' paintings by Josephine King provides just such a shock. King (b.1965 London) has been making art all her life, studying at the prestigous Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, but having resisted exhibiting these paintings until now, the work has the unmistakable punch of a discovery of true import.
Josephine King achieved success early on for her ceramics, being the only professional artist-in-residence at Lisbon’s renowned “azulejos” museum of tiles, a page review in Flash Art leading to global distribution for these beautiful objects.
But this was before the discovery of her extreme bi-polar mania which so unbalanced her life, almost ending it on several occasions, yet ironically providing the artist with the subject matter for her mature, breakthrough work being exhibited today.
Here the chromatic tones, dancing patterns and lightness of touch of her earlier decorative oeuvre is fused with altogether more bleak subject matter; the blackest melancolia, drug abuse and destructive relationships along with several suicide attempts.
But these troubles are not reflected in any initial appreciation of the work. The paintings are overtly, outrageously attractive with bright palette and dazzling textural and tonal variation, so attractive that only slowly do you come to realise their message of utter despair, a despair whose only redemption is in the making of art, the making of this art itself.
King grew up in the haute bohemia of late 1960s North London until moving while still a child to Amsterdam. As the daughter of the renowned designer, and collector of Soviet material David King (now with his own permanent room at Tate Modern ) and a dedicated mother, her mixed cultural background and subsequent world travelling led to her pushing the boundaries of creativity with utmost daring. King does not hide her love for earlier women artists, often also troubled, but her composition and subject matter remain absolutely her own; an unmistakable 'signature' mix.
This view of the world, the artist looking out without any trace of self-conscious cynicism, with absolute sincerity, with complete generosity, is here laid bare for us.
Adrian Dannatt,
Adrian Dannatt is a writer and curator and a regular contributor to The Art Newspaper
Josephine King (b1965, London) British/Dutch
Education: Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, 1987-1992
Painting/Printmaking
Ecole National Superieure Des Arts Decoratifs
Paris: 1991
Painting/Printmaking
AR.CO - Lisbon, Post-Academy: 1993-1994
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Museu Do Azulejo
Lisbon: 1993-1995
Tile painting
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Zoological Museum
Amsterdam: 1997-1998
Painting and studying butterflies and insects.
EXHIBITIONS
Gallery Ratton
Lisbon
'African Blues':1994
Tiles
Gallery Oikos
Lisbon:1995
Ceramic tiles
Nederlanse Tegelmuseum (Dutch Tile Museum)
Otterlo
'Portuguese Diary': 1998
Ceramic tiles and sketchbooks
Gallery Ratton
Lisbon
'Equus':1999
Ceramic tiles
ARTICLE
Flash Art
1995
'Global Art'
City Magazine
Lisbon: 1999
'Lisbon in Colour'
For press-use hi-res images
pls contact Theresa Simon Communications: 7-734-4800
www.theresasimon.com
"This is a grim and terrible subject, and the fact that she has shown it as playful and child-like images make it more frightening. They seem to me to be totally truthful pictures, from the heart, and they frighten me. Brave girl. Many people will identify with these images" Paula Rego.
Josephine King (b.1965 London) makes ink-paintings on paper, a flat 'cut out and keep'-style portrait framed by text documenting the often traumatic experience of the artist's 'life so far'.
The subject of the work is King's extreme bi-polar mania, an illness which has plagued her all her life leading to several suicide attempts, whilst at the same time providing her with the subject matter for her art. The painting style is intensely colourful, almost a kind of pop Fauvism, featuring the artist in a variety of starched and patterned clothing often holding a 'prop' - knife, pills, tube of paint - though the work, rather than appearing depressing in any way is intimate, inspiring - apparently optimistic.
It is clear from the syntax of the compositions that King has an innate faculty for and interest in design, the poster layout of the paintings likely to have been influenced by the working environment of her father (the designer and photographer David King), though 'Life so Far' also reveals an interest in heightened stylisation - from haute couture and classical Indian portraiture to Victoriana, Art Nouveau and the decorative arts.
The Riflemaker book to accompany the Josephine King exhibition features an from Adrian Dannatt, writer, curator and correspondent for the Art Newspaper.
LIFE SO FAR is co-curated by Virginia Damtsa and Tot Taylor with Adrian Dannatt.
Art can still sometimes be a revelation. The first ever exhibition of 'paper' paintings by Josephine King provides just such a shock. King (b.1965 London) has been making art all her life, studying at the prestigous Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, but having resisted exhibiting these paintings until now, the work has the unmistakable punch of a discovery of true import.
Josephine King achieved success early on for her ceramics, being the only professional artist-in-residence at Lisbon’s renowned “azulejos” museum of tiles, a page review in Flash Art leading to global distribution for these beautiful objects.
But this was before the discovery of her extreme bi-polar mania which so unbalanced her life, almost ending it on several occasions, yet ironically providing the artist with the subject matter for her mature, breakthrough work being exhibited today.
Here the chromatic tones, dancing patterns and lightness of touch of her earlier decorative oeuvre is fused with altogether more bleak subject matter; the blackest melancolia, drug abuse and destructive relationships along with several suicide attempts.
But these troubles are not reflected in any initial appreciation of the work. The paintings are overtly, outrageously attractive with bright palette and dazzling textural and tonal variation, so attractive that only slowly do you come to realise their message of utter despair, a despair whose only redemption is in the making of art, the making of this art itself.
King grew up in the haute bohemia of late 1960s North London until moving while still a child to Amsterdam. As the daughter of the renowned designer, and collector of Soviet material David King (now with his own permanent room at Tate Modern ) and a dedicated mother, her mixed cultural background and subsequent world travelling led to her pushing the boundaries of creativity with utmost daring. King does not hide her love for earlier women artists, often also troubled, but her composition and subject matter remain absolutely her own; an unmistakable 'signature' mix.
This view of the world, the artist looking out without any trace of self-conscious cynicism, with absolute sincerity, with complete generosity, is here laid bare for us.
Adrian Dannatt,
Adrian Dannatt is a writer and curator and a regular contributor to The Art Newspaper
Josephine King (b1965, London) British/Dutch
Education: Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, 1987-1992
Painting/Printmaking
Ecole National Superieure Des Arts Decoratifs
Paris: 1991
Painting/Printmaking
AR.CO - Lisbon, Post-Academy: 1993-1994
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Museu Do Azulejo
Lisbon: 1993-1995
Tile painting
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Zoological Museum
Amsterdam: 1997-1998
Painting and studying butterflies and insects.
EXHIBITIONS
Gallery Ratton
Lisbon
'African Blues':1994
Tiles
Gallery Oikos
Lisbon:1995
Ceramic tiles
Nederlanse Tegelmuseum (Dutch Tile Museum)
Otterlo
'Portuguese Diary': 1998
Ceramic tiles and sketchbooks
Gallery Ratton
Lisbon
'Equus':1999
Ceramic tiles
ARTICLE
Flash Art
1995
'Global Art'
City Magazine
Lisbon: 1999
'Lisbon in Colour'
JOHN MAEDA
Tuesday 16 November - Saturday 18 December 2010
'JOHN MAEDA IS THE FORTUNE-COOKIE'
John Maeda, digital art pioneer and current President of Rhode Island School of Design, follows up his groundbreaking 2008 Maeda/MySpace project at Riflemaker with a 'live' exhibition about wisdom, luck and information-getting.
Maeda (b1966 Seattle, Washington) is The Fortune Cookie; and he will relay his short and sweet messages twitter-style to the audience using a variety of means and formats - ripples in a pool of water, sand (in box), vapour (on window), flame-drawing (in the air a la Picasso) - maybe even by sending a text...
Each visitor to Riflemaker will be given a unique cookie, the physical apparition of which will be photographed (by the gallery and/or the lucky receiver) becoming an instant 'objet of affection/information'; a cookie to be mused upon, treasured, transacted/exchanged, sold/collected/stored by its new owner.
Everything is absolutely Live (no lipsync/no karaoke) once Maeda is in the sandbox, wiping the steamed window, gesturing in the air, texting the world.
John Maeda's display of voice-controlled computers is now on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1999, he was named one of 21 'Most important people in the 21st Century' by Esquire. In 2001, he received the National Design Award for Communication Design in the United States and Japan's Mainichi Design Prize.
In 2006, Maeda published Laws of Simplicity, his best-selling book to date, based on a research project to find ways for people to simplify their life in the face of growing complexity.
Maeda has recently exhibited at the V&A in London in Decode. He will present an exclusive new film work at Basel 2010.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Laws of Simplicity, MIT Press, 2006.
Creative Code, Thames and Hudson, 2004.
maeda@media, Thames and Hudson / Rizzoli / Bangert Verlag, 2000.
Design By Numbers, MIT Press, 1999.
Tap, Type, Write, Digitalogue Co., 1998.
12 o'clocks, Digitalogue Co., 1997.
Flying Letters, Digitalogue Co., 1996.
Reactive Square, Digitalogue Co., 1995.
Maeda (b1966 Seattle, Washington) is The Fortune Cookie; and he will relay his short and sweet messages twitter-style to the audience using a variety of means and formats - ripples in a pool of water, sand (in box), vapour (on window), flame-drawing (in the air a la Picasso) - maybe even by sending a text...
Each visitor to Riflemaker will be given a unique cookie, the physical apparition of which will be photographed (by the gallery and/or the lucky receiver) becoming an instant 'objet of affection/information'; a cookie to be mused upon, treasured, transacted/exchanged, sold/collected/stored by its new owner.
Everything is absolutely Live (no lipsync/no karaoke) once Maeda is in the sandbox, wiping the steamed window, gesturing in the air, texting the world.
John Maeda's display of voice-controlled computers is now on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1999, he was named one of 21 'Most important people in the 21st Century' by Esquire. In 2001, he received the National Design Award for Communication Design in the United States and Japan's Mainichi Design Prize.
In 2006, Maeda published Laws of Simplicity, his best-selling book to date, based on a research project to find ways for people to simplify their life in the face of growing complexity.
Maeda has recently exhibited at the V&A in London in Decode. He will present an exclusive new film work at Basel 2010.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Laws of Simplicity, MIT Press, 2006.
Creative Code, Thames and Hudson, 2004.
maeda@media, Thames and Hudson / Rizzoli / Bangert Verlag, 2000.
Design By Numbers, MIT Press, 1999.
Tap, Type, Write, Digitalogue Co., 1998.
12 o'clocks, Digitalogue Co., 1997.
Flying Letters, Digitalogue Co., 1996.
Reactive Square, Digitalogue Co., 1995.
TIM SHAW
The work of Belfast born sculptor Tim Shaw came to prominence via the impact created by his 2007 residency at the Armitage Foundation in West London.Shaw (b.1964) depicted the unrelenting horror of the Abu Graihb jail in Baghdad. Entering an unprepossessing house in Hammersmith visitors found themselves confronted by the shock of an all too real simulation of the terror cell, an image made familiar by constant press usage - one of the signature images of the war.
Walking from the street into a room filled with sand, bridged by an oil slick and attended by harsh intermittent lighting and a pumping heart-valve soundbed, visitors were struck dumb by the recreation of the cell and the dark almost-sacred atmosphere conjured by Shaw for his abuse nightmare from wrought iron, black baling plastic and straw to cast and bring to life his hooded victim/icon. The shadow across the path of the prisoner in the installation's title Casting A Dark Democracy being the pool of crude oil.
In November, Shaw will make his debut at Riflemaker with a Nativity installation set within the street-culture of the sculptor's teenage Belfast years - the mid 1970s.
Tim Shaw has exhibited widely throughout the UK and Ireland. In 2005, he was awarded The Prince's Bursary, and became resident artist at the British School of Athens. The Kenneth Armitage Fellowship followed in 2007. Shaw's work is included in many public and private contemporary collections.
In 2009 he received critical acclaim for his installation Casting A Dark Democracy - a depiction of abuse suffered by prisoners in the Abu Graihb prison as detailed by the 2004 Taguba Report.
A NATIVITY: SOUL SNATCHER POSSESSION opens on Monday 23 November
TIM SHAW
'Casting a Dark Democracy'
CASTING A DARK DEMOCRACY
Figure (Steel Frame), barbed wire, black Polythene, electrical cable
530 cm (h) x 300 cm (w) x 100 cm (l) 2008
+ Room Installation: oil pool, 600 cm x 350 cm (w), sand on floor, sound, light, mist
Figure (Steel Frame), barbed wire, black Polythene, electrical cable
530 cm (h) x 300 cm (w) x 100 cm (l) 2008
+ Room Installation: oil pool, 600 cm x 350 cm (w), sand on floor, sound, light, mist
During summer 2010 Tim Shaw will exhibit Parliament: mixed media room installation: rooks in straw, wire, black plastic; office furniture and sound, from 15 May - 15 August 2010 at
F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio
200 Newry Road, Banbridge
Co. Down, Northern Ireland
BT32 3NB
+44 (0)28 40623322
Parliament is an installation which comprises twenty-five rooks running amok within an ordinary office space. The birds are fashioned in black baling plastic, hay and wire; the work inspired by a two week residency this past winter at an artists' retreat in the west of Ireland.
"After two days of sitting idle, and anxious at not knowing what to do with myself in this cold, baron landscape; shapes began to emerge from out of the corner of my eye as I stared through the window. Black plastic snagged on barbed-wire began to conjure shapes, mischievous and sinister, taking the form of windswept crows and rooks.
Observing the behaviour of the birds, it seemed natural that their cries should merge with the voices of those in a position of power and influence as they debate within a theatre of flock mayhem"
Tim Shaw, Cornwall, Summer 2010
F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio
200 Newry Road, Banbridge
Co. Down, Northern Ireland
BT32 3NB
+44 (0)28 40623322
Parliament is an installation which comprises twenty-five rooks running amok within an ordinary office space. The birds are fashioned in black baling plastic, hay and wire; the work inspired by a two week residency this past winter at an artists' retreat in the west of Ireland.
"After two days of sitting idle, and anxious at not knowing what to do with myself in this cold, baron landscape; shapes began to emerge from out of the corner of my eye as I stared through the window. Black plastic snagged on barbed-wire began to conjure shapes, mischievous and sinister, taking the form of windswept crows and rooks.
Observing the behaviour of the birds, it seemed natural that their cries should merge with the voices of those in a position of power and influence as they debate within a theatre of flock mayhem"
Tim Shaw, Cornwall, Summer 2010