An exhibition of works by Daniel Barnard, David Baldwin, Jim McElvaney, Kymberly O‘Carroll-Fitzpatrick, Lynsey Storer

Private View: Friday 3rd of September 2010 – 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm Exhibition runs from: Friday 3rd of September – Thursday 16th of September 2010 Gallery Opening Hours: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri: 11.00 am to 6.30 pm Sat: 12.30pm - 5.00 pm
Last day of Exhibition: Thursday 16th of Sept: 10.00am to 5.00pm

This forthcoming exhibition of works by five artists with very strong and idiosyncratic styles confronts the viewer literally with art you don't see every day. Curated by Kymberly O‘Carroll-Fitzpatrick, the pieces on display delve into a world of the weird and wonderful at a first glance, yet on closer inspection reveal solid conceptual foundations addressing issues of gender, social acceptance and belonging. The works on display take the viewer on a journey from Pop Art to the baconesque, the abstract, lost and found objects and to the politics of cross-gender. This is a bold choice of works that will throw up a lot of questions on how the contemporary artist evaluates and sees our world.

Daniel Barnard: "Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had: "TRESPASSERS W…" on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name, and had been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you couldn't be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one. Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers." (Winnie the Pooh)

This one small paragraph from a children's book, epitomizes the beauty of using found objects, their strength and their power.

When Piglet so adamantly maintained that the found remains of a 'Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted' sign next to his house had once belonged to his grandfather, he ascribed this found object with a complex invented past with which to convince both himself and his audience. At first it is just Piglet's innocence and the humour that strikes you. But this really belies the hidden sadness, the sadness of a small knitted piglet who feels so alone and insignificant in the Hundred Acre Wood, that he feels to combat those feelings, he has to create an entire bogus ancestry to give him credence and a feeling of belonging and a reason to be taken seriously among his peers. I am not that little knitted piglet. I am merely a kindred spirit of his. For further info: www.danielbarnard.com

David Baldwin: Does the gender of this artist make certain meanings of the work inevitable? Baldwin's interests lie in the politics of representation, image making, and the application of paint, primarily focusing on woman as a motif. His concepts are formed through the continuing pictorial development, interrogation and assessment of modern females, responding to a frame of reference that encompasses femininity and modernity - his context. Thomas Laqueur stated (in Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud) that his particular Archimedean point, was not in the real trans-cultural body, but rather in the space between it and its representation. The actual female body and its representation understood as a 'space between' would suggest concepts of that body which can only be negotiated within specific historical, societal, and economic circumstances.
View more at: www.baldwinartist.com

Jim McElvaney is a Brighton based Painter whose subjects are chosen not on the basis of recognition but on personal visual appeal, the work is expressive, often unplanned and spontaneous. The non-descript backgrounds remove his subjects from their original context and stops them from becoming a literal rendition of their original source. McElvaney merges an array of materials including oils, spray paint, charcoal and oil pastel, each bringing their own individual characteristic to the work. www.jimmcelvaney.com/

Kymberly O‘Carroll-Fitzpatrick is a self-proclaimed pop artist. Influenced by Lichtenstein and Warhol, dominated by humour her art has no apparent meaning than to entertain the viewer.

O‘Carroll-Fitzpatrick's art practice is inspired by different aspects of 60's and 70's pop culture. She borrows and appropriates images from sources that include comics, magazines and other old books. O‘Carroll-Fitzpatrick chooses images because they are aesthetically pleasing and can be easily changed and manipulated. Mirroring the style of comic books, her paintings consist of flat areas of bright colours and thick black outlines. She mainly works with acrylics on canvas.

Lynsey Storer's paintings have evolved from a strong interest in light and attempts to recreate this through the use of colour and pattern; allowing reverberation of the picture plane. Storer is interested in the hand-made; this means that each original painting is a unique statement. Her recent work, which follows her ten-year studies into optical art, is based mainly on experimental processes but still looking at capturing light on the canvas. For further info, visit: www.lynseystorer.co.uk/