STUART PEARSON WRIGHT
(b. 1975, Northampton)Wednesday 5 May - Saturday 26 June 2010
"Self-portraits are the most persistent of my subjects. This is due largely to narcissism but is also a form of catharsis to heal the vacuum at the centre of my identity. Born by artificial insemination and consequently never having known my father, I am fascinated by, and suspicious of, masculine role-models and archetypes as seen in film, art history and advertising.
Role-playing is central to my work. Whether it is via the medium of painting, film or drawing, I feel the need to include myself within an existing myth and become werewolf or cowboy, a B-movie actor moving from role to role.
By inhabiting different male archetypes (in particular, the Heroic) I am trying to expose them as fictional constructs and to reference the wider metaphor of life as theatre, or being-as-playing-a-role.
By continuing to appropriate these fictional roles I get no closer to an understanding of what a male is (or should be) but perhaps I begin to understand at least what a male is not.
Born, quite by chance, in Northampton in 1975, I lived in numerous UK locations including Milton Keynes, Bexhill-on-sea, High Wycombe and wherever-a-bed-could-be-found, but largely in Eastbourne. At the age of five I decided to be an artist"
Stuart Pearson Wright has exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (John Moores), The Geffrye Museum, London, Jerwood Space, London and the National Portrait Gallery. His work is included in the collections of the British Museum, Government Art Collection, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum USA, and the Baring Bank collection, Brussels.
Role-playing is central to my work. Whether it is via the medium of painting, film or drawing, I feel the need to include myself within an existing myth and become werewolf or cowboy, a B-movie actor moving from role to role.
By inhabiting different male archetypes (in particular, the Heroic) I am trying to expose them as fictional constructs and to reference the wider metaphor of life as theatre, or being-as-playing-a-role.
By continuing to appropriate these fictional roles I get no closer to an understanding of what a male is (or should be) but perhaps I begin to understand at least what a male is not.
Born, quite by chance, in Northampton in 1975, I lived in numerous UK locations including Milton Keynes, Bexhill-on-sea, High Wycombe and wherever-a-bed-could-be-found, but largely in Eastbourne. At the age of five I decided to be an artist"
Stuart Pearson Wright has exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (John Moores), The Geffrye Museum, London, Jerwood Space, London and the National Portrait Gallery. His work is included in the collections of the British Museum, Government Art Collection, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum USA, and the Baring Bank collection, Brussels.
ANJA NIEMI
'Porcelain'Monday 12 October - Monday 19 October
at Riflemaker; 33, Portland Place, W1
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