If you haven’t had a chance to visit the latest contemporary art exhibition at art_house_life as part of Ventnor Fringe Festival yet – worry not, there is still plenty of time.
Not only that, but over the next couple of days, there’s a chance to meet some of the 19 artists taking part in the ‘reality disrupted’ exhibition.
- Wednesday 24th July: Meet the Artist: Zoe Barker (2.30pm)
- Thursday 25th July: Meet the Artist: Ever Grainger (11am)
- Thursday 25th July: Meet the Poet: Maggie Sawkins (2.30pm)
- Friday 26th July: Meet the Artist: Jan Frith (11am)
Zoë Barker
For the last few months photographer Zoë Barker has used a stopwatch to time how long it takes her to find one hundred fragments of rubbish on her local Ryde beach (predominantly plastics, but also metals and fabrics). The record is four minutes and six seconds, which equates to finding one fragment every 2.46 seconds. The smallest fragments measure just 2mm across.
Each set of one hundred objects has been arranged and photographed and a selection of these images are presented side by side in this exhibition. The title of each image is the number of minutes and seconds that it took to assemble each batch of one hundred. What these numbers tell us about the state of our oceans is horrifying.
Running in parallel with her 100 Fragments Project, Zoë has also been exploring other ways in which she might ‘showcase’ her finds. Using old tins found at boot sales, Zoë’s lost and broken objects, once destined to break down slowly in the sea, are ‘rescued’ and given a new purpose, each composition creating something unexpected and surprisingly beautiful.
You can meet Zoë at art_house_life between 2.30pm and 3.30pm on Wednesday 24th July.
Ever Grainger
Ever’s work in this exhibition is an installation of a series of dripped and dropped silicone pieces that are spaced out along the jet-black mantelpiece in the gallery; production-line style, in a vivid green.
Accompanying them is a C-Type print – a stereo photographic anaglyph – on the wall above, featuring one of the silicone pieces enlarged, isolated, hovering in a grey tinted non-space. Red and blue viewing glasses are provided.
Ever’s works since 2019 have featured the use of hand-extruded silicone exploring its material possibilities in relation to tools, machines and the artist’s hand. In using or returning to manual tools and analogue photographic processes, she looks to create a dialogue, here ‘unplugged’, around our relationship with rapidly advancing technologies.
You can meet Ever at art_house_life between 11am and 12 noon on Thursday 25th July, and she will also be participating in art-house-life’s Panel Event: Traditional processes in contemporary photography between 2pm and 4.30pm on Friday 26th July.
Maggie Sawkins
Maggie holds an MA with distinction in Creative Writing and is a professional member of the National Association of Writers in Education. She is currently working on ‘Flyweight’ a new production of poetry and film exploring the world of female boxing.
The House Where Courage Lives (Waterloo Press) is her latest collection of poetry and prose. Her live literature production Zones of Avoidance won the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.
You can meet Maggie at art_house_life between 2.30pm and 3.30pm on Thursday 25th July.
Jan Frith
Jan is artist who explores past and present; chance and control; technologies and machines. She often contrasts the historical contexts of technologies, exposes the material aspects of technology or human/ technology interactions.
Jan will be participating in art-house-life’s Panel Event: AI in the Hands of Artists 2-4.30pm Monday 22nd July, and will also be our Meet the Artist at art_house_life 11-12 noon Fri 26th July.
Paradox Paul
Since 2020 Paul has been based at Paradox Island in Ventnor, making parody consumer products out of random used items, packaged to look new and once more attractive to buy.
This year his “trash art” project has taken on LPs and Paradox Island has been taken over by Dodgy Records Ltd. Album art in the 70s and 80s from Hipgnosis was a big influence as a youngster. He spent pocket money on LPs chosen purely for the covers, discovering at home what the music was like.
He says,
“Perhaps because I was so in awe of the artworks and the feel of the expensive (for me) records themselves, I was rarely disappointed in what they contained. Designs for the ‘Fake Albums’ are turned into record sleeves containing actual used records, made anonymous with gold leaf covering the original information on the centre labels.
“Listening to the discs – which can be anything from stand up comedy to Bach or Barry Manilow to Scottish pipes – therefore becomes an enhanced experience (or a disappointing one!) without preconceptions, and with a brand new cover image.”
Here, art meets music in shifting juxtapositions, while what started as trash art has developed into alternative fine art.
Open daily – Free entry
There is free entry into the exhibition (35 Madeira Road), which is open daily from 10.30am to 12.30pm and then again from 2pm to 4.30pm until Sunday 28th July.
Book your free ticket today by visiting Ventnor Fringe Box Office.
See the art_house_life website for more information.
Our thanks to art_house_life for sponsoring for this feature. They and other businesses and organisations taking paid promotion enables you to continue reading OnTheWight for free.
