In and out of windows
Michael Davies, Kerstin Drechsel, Jorn Ebner, Nick Fox, Jock Mooney, Michael Mulvihill, Morten Schelde, Alison Unsworth
27 June – 9 August 2014
‘In and out of windows’, 2014, installation view
‘In and out of windows’, 2014, installation view
‘In and out of windows’, 2014, installation view
‘In and out of windows’, 2014, installation view
‘In and out of windows’ is an exhibition bringing together a diversity of international artists’ approaches to printmaking and its different techniques.
“I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. And they in turn seem to be aware of me.”
Ansel Adams, American photographer, 1902-84
Michael Davies’s apparently mundane street scenes and institutional and domestic interiors on closer inspection reveal a search for the transcendent; every object, situation and denizen becoming both an ominous and numinous herald of the unknown.
Kerstin Drechsel captures intimate moments of individuals or sub-culture groups expressing or identifying themselves through their rituals or in the environments they create, her paintings of which are often produced as series of the same image, but with each rendered differently, echoing the printed photographs of their source material.
Jorn Ebner creates strange, elusive, imaginary environments – from sim-cities to writhing nebulae of colour – into which he inserts characters drawn from both art and literature.
Nick Fox transforms the found taboo image and context into one of intimacy and emotive experience; creating tantalising idylls and elusive narratives of an Eden after the fall where innocence has been banished.
Jock Mooney constructs an eclectic, unashamedly alternative view of the world. His work features distorted humans, animals and objects, all compelled to participate in Mooney’s never-ending danse macabre.
Michael Mulvihill’s landscapes, urban scenes and portraits display a deep sense of anxiety, of disaster waiting to happen, of the imminent decay of contemporary culture.
Jock Mooney, Daphne, 2012, photo-polymer gravure on Magnani paper, 35x25cm. Edition of 8
Kerstin Drechsel, DG 4, 2012, watercolour and gouache on paper, 32x24cm
Morten Schelde, Crazy Horses Teenage Wasteland 2, 2007, lithograph, 120x80cm
Michael Davies, Cattle grid, 2014, three colour reduction linocut on Fabriano paper, 40x40cm
Morten Schelde creates a mythic world of primal fears and desires. In his inner landscapes objects cease to be controlled by the laws of physics, interior becomes exterior, background becomes foreground, the past merges with the future.
Alison Unsworth looks at the coexistence of the planned and unplanned within the urban landscape, the contrast between the original design – pristine, clean controlled – and the reality of the life and activity that takes over – graffiti, fingerprints, scratches, pigeon droppings, and dirt.
Presented as part of the third International Print Biennale, the biggest print festival in the UK. Taking place at galleries, museums and libraries across the North East of England from 27 June to 9 August 2014, the event celebrates the history of printmaking and role of print in contemporary artists’ practice.
For more information visit www.internationalprintbiennale.org.uk
Take a video tour of the exhibition
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