MAKING SENSE
I’klectik Art Lab presents 6 Essex based artists in a new show, Making Sense. Being immersed into a range of mixed media installations, the audience will experience the way these artists combine their practice with the multi-sensory. Your senses will be put to the test as you explore each artist’s work through sight, touch, smell, sound and taste. The show will heighten your senses to explore the combination of art, everyday experiences and, found objects, and the places that surround us. Artists Freya Boittier, Amanda Westbury, Chris Macalllan, Fiona Bennett, Nicola Hutchison and Mike Coombs are brought together from an Essex art hub and studios, Gatehouse Arts. The group are presenting brand new work specific to this exhibition, curated by Freya Boittier. This interactive and fun exhibition offers free admission at Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG. A private viewing is taking place on 27 November, 6pm – 9pm. The exhibition runs until 5 December 2014.
Freya Boittier
Freya works in all disciplines of art although more recently she has turned to creating interactive installations. The ideas and aesthetics approaches of the work both vary from each individual concept. This is based on her experiences growing up with a severely autistic brother that affects the way her work should be seen and as well as appreciated by everyone disregarding physical and emotional ability. She uses strong colours, industrial, every day and multi-sensory materials to create her multi-sensory works. Her installations challenge the viewer’s perspective including vision through the use of 3D and coloured glasses.
Amanda Westbury
Amanda’s work is primarily in the public realm, with an interest in how communities and people communicate with these spaces. She is attracted to the interaction between people and the built/natural environment, with an interested in how you can use art to humanise a public space or building, or as a tool for discussion. Public engagement or consultation is a big part of her practice. Her work is often project based, in partnership with schools, local authorities, youth groups, regeneration programs, health authorities, community groups, museums and environmental spaces. She is interested in using narrative, memory and mapping in her work. Recently her work has led to her collaborative and creative working with carers and dementia patients.
Chris Macallan
Chris’s practise makes use of the expressive organic forms, which are then presented as site specific installations. The processes and materials selected seek to extend and transform the original image or concept through de-construction and reconstruction. This distorts the image into abstraction and seeks to locate its essence by projecting it into a context which is delicate, subtle, suggestive and sensory. She uses a range of materials as her ‘blank canvas’ such a silk, 8mm and 16mm film, digital photography and a wide range of surfaces on which she projects, prints or paints on.
Nicola Hutchison
Nicola is a multidisciplinary artist, working in composition, visual art, sonic art, and performance. Nicola’s works span a range of formats, including improvisations, installations, and collaborations with other artists and media. She is interested in creating work exploring embodiment, process and environment as a route to emotion. ‘Play’ is another theme which infuses Nicola’s practice. Fiona Bennett My practice debates the developing, changing and converting spaces in our communities in the UK and abroad. The centre of our communities are like a living creature that is born, grows, develops, evolves and dies. Using photography as a base, my work traces the current passing history observing the inter-relationship of the converting spaces and capturing the ‘moments in time’ before they are lost forever. Each generation and community constructs space for a purpose but all too soon yesterday’s fashion becomes tomorrows discard.
The majority of my work has a narrative of an event, place or space and draws on the historical element. I seek to extend the image and to date I have used B+W, colour, abstraction, computer generated images, photomontage and cyanotype printing. I enjoy developing and learning new processes to discuss each subject with the most appropriate medium. Working aesthetically, I consider perceptions, visual content and draw on the historical.
Fiona Bennett
Fiona’s practice debates the developing, changing and converting spaces in our communities in the UK and abroad. The centre of our communities are like a living creature that is born, grows, develops, evolves and dies.
Using photography as a base, her work traces the current passing history observing the inter-relationship of the converting spaces and capturing the ‘moments in time’ before they are lost forever. Each generation and community constructs space for a purpose but all too soon yesterday’s fashion becomes tomorrows discard.
The majority of her work has a narrative of an event, place or space and draws on the historical element. She seek to extend the image and to date uses black and white, colour, abstraction, computer generated images, photomontage and cyanotype printing. She enjoy developing and learning new processes to discuss each subject with the most appropriate medium. Working aesthetically, she consider perceptions, visual content and draws on the historical.
Mike Coombs
Mike is a musician and teacher that is collaborating with Fiona Bennett especially for this exhibition. As well as composing music he teaches guitar and banjo to a wide range of students.
