PRIDE Magazine - Published Reviews
Janette Parris (April 1998) - Paul O'Kane
Watch out for artist Janette Parris, presently attracting attention
for her tragi-comic video films and drawings. With upcoming shows
in Rome and Vienna and a Parris-penned musical to be staged at London’s
I.C.A, 1998 looks promising for her.
The London-born, Goldsmiths-trained ex-painter has been transforming galleries into comfortable interiors where visitors can relax and watch her fun-sized soap operas. Each of these 5 to 10 minute episodes pairs an actor with a doll in a one-way conversation taken from their secret affair, divorce or first date. Both funny and ridiculous they also imply a ‘me’ society where self-indulgence has spoiled communication.
‘Bite Yer Tongue’ is a hand-written record of incidents in which the artist’s polite, tactful replies to disappointments and humiliations contrast with the cutting remarks she thinks but doesn’t say. Each tale of bottled-up anger ends with junk food eaten to make up for missed satisfaction.
Parris also draws cartoons of ‘Plank’, a piece of wood in search of a personality. ‘Plank’ turns up as a misfit in various everyday scenes and could describe the feeling of being an outsider.
This timely storyteller with her family of dysfunctional characters will amuse and provoke wherever she shows.
END
Hurvin Anderson JULY - Paul O'Kane
Hurvin Anderson, who has just completed his masters degree at the Royal
College of Art, paints emotive scenes from an exiled memory. Born in
Birmingham, Hurvin progressed through foundation at his local polytechnic
then completed a B.A at Wimbledon School of Art before winning a place
at the Royal College.
His work shifts from addressing emigration and transient identity to a self-assured love of painting in which experiment with gesture emphasises form. Anderson has produced scenes which haunt like déjà vu and figures which are faceless or unformed. Yet these retain an intimate feel, infused with the nostalgia of a family photo album. The artist’s technical experiments remain unconcealed in his work while specific cultural issues rub shoulders with more broadly human questions.
Some of his paintings are black and white, emphasising crisp drawing skills while simultaneously alluding, like old photos, to an irretrievable past. His larger paintings reveal a fondness for warm, earthy colours. Confronted by Anderson’s work, the viewer may recall similar half-remembered, privately profound moments: a sister and niece against a wintry landscape, the platform of a local railway station, relatives posing before ascending stairs into waiting jets or the enchantment of distant lights. Look out for future Anderson shows.
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Bisi Silva JULY - Paul O’Kane
This
October head for ‘Hair Daze’, the latest arts event
to be organised by curator Bisi Silva.
Born in Nigeria, Bisi attended schools in England before studying languages and art history in France, then, after a number of paid and voluntary jobs involving arts administration, languages and business she joined the MA Visual Arts Administration course at the Royal College of Art to train as a curator. As part of the course she travelled to Harlem for a placement in an African-American museum..
Bisi remains concerned that she is still one of the few black woman curators in British art, though she admits it demands deep commitment. She set up her own arts organisation ‘Fourth Dial Arts’ in January ‘97 to create diverse cultural programmes and has recently returned from an Arts Council funded research trip to Cuba where she investigated the potential for a show of Cuban photography.
‘Hair Daze, The Cultural Politics Of Black Hair’ is the next Fourth Dial project and consists of short films, lectures and discussions. The event will be shared between two sites, The Lux Centre in Hoxton Square London on Saturday 10th October and Arnolfini in Bristol on Saturday 31st of October.
Contact Fourth Dial Arts on 0171-586-5560 or e-mail: 106353.534@compuserve.com.
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Aubrey Williams July - Paul O’Kane
This summer
London’s Whitechapel gallery hosts a major retrospective
of the Guyanese painter Aubrey Williams, who died in 1990. Williams,
famous for his bold, vivid and sometimes explosive works, drew on
influences as diverse as orchestral music, abstract expressionism
and pre-Columbian
Mexican civilisations for inspiration.
Williams said he discovered what art was really all about while working as an agricultural officer and spending time with the indigenous Warrau tribe of the remote Guyanese hinterland. He was banished there after encouraging small farmers to claim rights against British-owned sugar plantations. His concern for the impact of technology on ecology informed his later work.
Well versed in ornithology and astronomy, his work bridged disparate cultures and beliefs. His intellectual powers were internationally acknowledged and he lectured at universities in Britain and the West Indies.
Some critics feel his contribution as a British based artist has been overlooked and, although respected as a key figure of Caribbean art, this show is being seen as an opportunity to reassess his position within British cultural heritage.
The Whitechapel exhibition should be a visually stunning tribute to “a man who constantly pursued the expression of freedom in a changing and developing world” and who’s legacy continues to inspire.
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Aubrey Williams at the Whitechapel Art Gallery Whitechapel High Street
London E1.
12th June to 16th August 1998. Open Tue-Sun 11 am - 5 pm (Wed until
8pm) Admission free.
TALAWA August - Paul O’Kane
Stage-struck
17-25 year-olds will gain a priceless slice of theatre life this month
when Talawa, Britain’s foremost black theatre
company, runs its annual summer school.
The four-week course introduces hopefuls to the full range of theatrical
disciplines including speech, movement, design and lighting, enabling
them to get on the right track. Competition for the twelve places is
hot with only 1 in 5 winning a place.
Talawa’s General Manager Anthony Corriette says: “It’s
a chance for young people to get a taste of working in a theatre
environment” “and to be able to make choices about their
future.” adds Artistic Director Yvonne Brewster OBE.
If a bid for lottery funds is successful the school could soon run all year round, giving a much- needed break to youngsters lacking academic qualifications now required by many drama degree courses.
Established actors like Cathy Tyson teach and support the course and certificates are awarded to pupils, some of whom quickly make progress towards more professional experience.
The acclaimed theatre company has 12 years and 40 productions under
its belt and the summer school is just one example of the many satellite
projects, workshops, educational programmes and archives it organises.
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Talawa’s ‘Zebra Crossing’, a feast of experimental ideas showcasing young actors, writers directors and designers, takes place at Lyric Theatre Hammersmith’s Studio from 14 October to 7 November 1998.
Rita Keegan September - Paul O’Kane
Bronx-born Rita Keegan combines new media with installation to examine
historical processes. After working with Egyptian relics in the British
Museum and having shows in Mexico and Brazil she is now dealing with
intimate, domestic memories.
During September she will turn Brixton’s 198 gallery into an abstracted home environment where you can see, hear, touch, smell and even taste the art, thereby triggering collective and personal recollections.
While at college in California Keegan witnessed anti-war and equality protests as well as Black Panther activity and the early 70’s saw her painting while guiding flower-power runaways who’d lost the plot.
In the 1980s the now London-based artist helped set up both Brixton
Art Gallery and ‘Copy Art’ before working with the Women’s
Artist’s Slide Library and becoming Director of the African and
Asian Visual Artist’s Archive (AAVAA) from ‘92-’94.
Her great, great grandmother, the daughter of a white woman and
a slave, was sent to Canada a free woman and this connection meant
that Keegan spent childhood summers by Lake Ontario.
She recently taught Theories of New Media at Goldsmiths College, examining how media saturation and virtual reality affect the way we maintain our own truths, realities and histories.
Her 198 Gallery show promises to be a sensual feast of cultural stimulation.
MF
Rita Keegan September Paul O’Kane 2
Rita Keegan’s residency @ 198 Gallery Railton Road Brixton London
runs from 17th August to 17th October 1998.
Open to public throughout September and by appointment. Contact Paul
Howard 0171-978-8309
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Yinka Shonibare October - Paul O’Kane
If you
travel on London’s Underground this month don’t miss
Yinka Shonibare ’s ‘Diary of a Victorian Dandy’.
The internationally recognised artist, who exhibited in last year’s notorious ‘Sensation’ show has made fantasy photographs of himself enjoying a decadent 19th Century lifestyle of flamboyant clothes, elegant interiors and guilt-free pleasures.
The result is a series of giant posters which will arrest the attention of commuters at 50 underground stations throughout October.
Shonibare enlisted a professional team including a director, photographer, make-up artist and actors to create sufficiently luxurious reconstructions of a day in the life of a spoilt fop.
The dandy tradition includes people like Oscar Wilde and Beau Brummell but was most recently revived by Chris Eubank who, by resorting to the pose seemed to claim the position in British society which he felt his achievements deserved.
But these works also refer to the dandy inside every highly fashion-conscious male and compare the aristocratic past with contemporary stances of chic street gangster or impeccable jazz dude.
The project, presented by The Institute of International Visual Arts, will be accompanied by a programme of supporting events and discussions on contemporary British culture, the first of which is titled ‘Vindaloo and Chips’.
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Senam Okudzeto November 98 - Paul O’Kane
Painter
and curator Senam Okudzeto portrays “the transgressive,
empowered female force” and this month there’s two opportunities
to view her work.
At ‘The Brick House’ in London’s Brick Lane, you can see large (up to 5ft x 10ft) paintings of blood-red, faceless, nude female figures weeping, erupting and doing battle with varying degrees of pride, eroticism and abjection.
Meanwhile the newly revamped Royal Commonwealth Society presents her small “raw” drawings and sketches made during the last year.
Senam is a graduate of the Slade School of Art and the Royal College of Art and recently curated an exhibition at Whiteleys, Bayswater celebrating African art. Born in the U.S she grew up in Nigeria and Ghana but her family’s involvement in Ghana’s political upheavals during the 1980s brought them to Britain as political refugees. She has exhibited several times in London as well as in New York and Chicago.
Calling herself a ‘Post-Feminist’ who entertains a “patchwork quilt” of ideas about race and gender politics, Okudzeto thinks identity is something “in constant flux”. Her work evokes a rounded view of Black woman’s experience, using expressive techniques to produce energised, emotive images which illustrate both erotic climax and the blood, sweat and tears which the body exudes.
Senam Okudzeto shows at The Brick House, 152c Brick Lane London E1 from
6th to the 8th November and at the Royal Commonwealth Society, 18 Northumberland
Avenue London WC2 from 2nd to 13th November.
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Profile: Sonia Boyce and AAVAA
December ‘98 Paul O’Kane
Until recently if you asked
about prominent Black British artists the first name many people would say
was Sonia Boyce. Throughout the
1980’s and 90s Sonia has sustained a high-profile practise, first
as a painter then as an installation artist working with various media.
Now, a role as Co-Director of The African and Asian Visual Artist’s Archive (AAVAA) has become a central concern for her.
Sonia shares the job with partner David A Bailey, also a well-known artist, writer and curator who organised the prestigious ‘Rhapsodies in Black’ -Art of the Harlem Renaissance, at the Hayward Gallery in 1997.
AAVAA was founded by artist Eddie Chambers in Bristol in 1988 and run for a time by Rita Keegan before transferring to its present home at The University of East London’s Greengate House in Plaistow in 1995.
Its aim is to chronicle the careers of artists of African and Asian descent through a collection of approximately 30,000 artefacts, mostly on post-war UK- based artists. The archive holds a large collection of books, catalogues, slides, tapes, videos, periodicals and CD ROMS and over 200 artists have already been chronicled.
A new phase in the life of AAVAA is just beginning as it prepares to
digitise its information into an accessible database. Furthermore a big
move is imminent when next year, along with UEL’s Fine Art Department
it moves into brand new, purpose-built riverside buildings in London’s
Docklands. MF
Sonia Boyce and AAVAA
December ‘98 Paul O’Kane 2
As British Art begins to acknowledge poorly documented post-war multicultural creativity, Sonia, David and AAVAA administrator Janie Conley ensure that artists, journalists, students and researchers can locate information to record and critique this ever-burgeoning area and ensure that future enquires about Black British-based artists will find Sonia Boyce’s name to be just one among many on which a broad public is comprehensively informed.
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The African and Asian Visual Artist’s Archive (AAVAA) is open on Wednesdays only from 10.30 a.m to 4.30 p.m. To visit, write to: University of East London, Greengate Street, London E13 OBG or call 0181-548- 9146 or Fax 0181-548 9147
October Gallery January 1999 -
Paul O’Kane
This month check-out ‘New Colours From Old Worlds’ the October
gallery’s show of contemporary art from Oceania, featuring work
from Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
Art of this region was admired by avant-garde modernists like Picasso, Man Ray and Cézanne who also collected the work but this show intends to bring us right up to date.
The brightly coloured works –painting and sculpture– fuse together indigenous techniques with images and methods from the West. ‘New Colours From Old Worlds’ concentrates on work of the last 30 years and aims to reveal some of the cultural processes taking place to create this contemporary style.
Regional and historical differences and similarities will be examined
along with the impact of technology and the artist’s place in society.
Some of the artists included are Mathias Kauage O.B.E, John Siune, Oscar
Towa, Aloi Pilioko, Juliette Pita, Yvette Bouquet, Ruki Frame, Gikmai
Kundun and Tom Deko.
The show runs until 23rd January and should provide a warming, colourful
experience on a winter day.
‘
ROUTES’ @ Brunei Gallery S.O.A.S
22nd January to 26th March 1999 Paul O’Kane
If there’s a space in your diary this month make a date to visit ‘ROUTES’ at
the Brunei gallery. This spectacular, engaging and thought-provoking
show features five artists with backgrounds in four continents.
The work includes sculpture and painting laid out within the purpose-built ‘Brunei
Gallery’ at ‘S.O.A.S’ (School of Oriental and African
Studies) London.
Juginder Lamba’s beautiful carved sculptures make metaphorical
reference to the human condition by revealing the rich inner heart
of raw wood held tight within pale outer layers. This craftsman’s
exquisite skills fuse Indian, African and British influence and
bring us to empathise with the natural world.
Ghana-born Godfried Donkor provides a series of paintings describing the rise of slaves to boxing champions and spotlights this role of the entertainer as a tough path to liberty.
Hew Locke, who’s background spans Britain and Guyana shows a huge,
decorative cardboard ship sculpture articulating a half-mystical, half
nightmarish journey of exportation. He also supplies large fascinating
drawings of grotesque, hybrid historical figures.
Leeds-born Frances Richardson trained in Africa and Australia and
carves from wood while playing on various eroticisms of natural
and man-made surfaces. Her complex pencil drawings refer to mathematical
forms in nature or perhaps natural systems in maths.
South African Johannes Phokela skilfully appropriates from European
art history and twists well-known images to tell his own stories of
racial identity and cultural exchange.
‘ROUTES’ is curated by Rose Issa who has made many contributions to the recognition of African and Near-Eastern art in Britain. She says the show “demonstrates that those who are able to speak in many tongues and from multiple perspectives, occupy the centre, not the periphery...”
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For more information contact: The Brunei gallery website at:
http: //www.soas. ac. uk/brunei
or call John Hollingworth on 0171-323-6230
Paul O’Kane ‘empire and I’ March 1999
January 22nd to March 13th 1999 Pitshanger Manor Gallery Ealing
23-year-old
Lorrice Douglas -presently completing a masters degree in Fine Art
Media at Slade School of Art shows her work this month along
with eight other artists -all of whom have an idiosyncratic take on
post-colonial issues- in a show called ‘empire and I’ at
Pitshanger Manor Gallery, Ealing, London.
Lorrice, of Jamaican/English parents entered the Slade after gaining a first class honours degree in sculpture at Brighton College of Art. Prior to attending Brighton she took foundation studies at West Herts College near her home town of Watford
Lorrice’s work to date -in which she often appears in a performative role- has involved conscientiously executed critiques of English institutions including cricket, small businessmen and meat-and-two-veg dinners. She has also performed a tribute to the single-mindedness of Stanley Green, the maverick sandwich-board philosopher of Oxford Street.
‘empire and I’ deals with the ‘memory work’ required to unravel our post-colonial era and examines ideas of ‘British-ness’ and ‘foreign-ness’ from a variety of viewpoints which emphasise the artist’s subjective responses.
Also appearing in ‘empire and I’ are Alana Jelinek (who
is also the curator) Erika Tan, Rea, Shaheen Merali, Tertia Longmire,
Colin Darke, Anthony Key and Niema Khan.
Between them they represent, Chinese, Jewish, Australian, Middle-class
English, Asian and Aboriginal Australian perspectives in a broad range
of media.
Both Pitshanger Manor and the Brighton museum and art gallery to which the show travels later in the year have been chosen for their 19th Century imperial decor.
The show is also expected to travel to Cheltenham but details are as yet unavailable.
‘empire and I’ January 22 - March 13th 1999 Pitshanger Manor and Gallery, Mattock Lane, Ealing, London W5 5EQ
Further Info Contact ‘terra incognita’ on 0171-790-1864
or Pitshanger Manor Gallery on 0171-567-1277