Cell Project Space

An International group show with artists based in Australia, Canada, USA, UK.

Zombie Surfers is a moment inspired by a surf session at Sennen Cove, Cornwall. An eerie fog rolled in whilst waiting for swell in the line-up, causing a quiet and stillness of the sea, surfers losing all sense of direction to the shore. For a while lost surfer souls drifted in the fog like grey shadows.waiting. The art here is not surf inspired, although surfer and artist are in pursuit of the same elusive moment of perfection. It is this elusive moment, which drives them to continue to obsessive lengths. Ironically, attainment of this legendary and enigmatic perfect moment may endanger the perpetuation of the individuals' obsession, but until then they are drawn towards their goal like stumbling zombies. The exhibition will examine hierarchies within sub-cultural structures and focus on the individuals' obsession with inclusion or exclusion into the group. For Zombie Surfers, Richard Priestley will build the mythical surf shack, its contents become its icons, effigies and shrines, and its gallerist come shack keeper, its minister. The work selected draws from hybrids of popular culture, which raises questions about the hopes and aspirations of individuals who have an interest in countercultural activity. They include cultural references that have, over time, become embedded into a collective consciousness. This work becomes part of the shack and the blurring of edges between art, interior and product opens a dialogue about collaboration and authorship. Visitors are invited to participate and try smoothies, watch films, leaf through zines, play music and hang out.

Ellen Cantor make's paintings, drawings, art books and videos, soul searching and relentless, furrowing into the recesses of pop culture, sexual communion and childhood memory. Within Cantor's drawings creepy clown-like skulls merge onto paper like a disparate scrawling diary. Her drawings have the personality of home-made tattoos mapped out as if made with needle and biro. For many her work is prickly with the relics of a spiritual eroticism haunting the romantic sweetness of the cartoon iconography she chooses.

Cantor originally from New York currently lives and works in London she has exhibited widely at Sketch, London, 1000000mph, London, Delfina, London, FA Projects, London, Transmission, Glasgow; Kunsthalle, Wein; Kunstbunker, Nuremberg; Marcus Ritter, NY; XL Xavier Laboulbenne, NY; Her group exhibitions include Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Edinburgh International Film Festival; 8th and 9th Biennale de l'Image in Mouvement, Saint Gervais, Geneva; and NIKOLAJ, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center.

Mike Paré's large-scale graphite renderings of counterculture crowds-be-ins, protests, guerilla theater-communicate both the hope and desperation of the 1960s; the social upheaval and communal bliss. It is the timelessness of the depicted events, rather than their commemoration, however, that most interests Paré. Though decades have passed, the ideals that were cultivated then continue to sprout and grow. Rock concerts, Yippie sit-ins, and folk festivals are familiar territory for Paré. Florescent-pigmented objects hover above his figures as if patiently awaiting something as elusive as change. Within his more recent video work geometric lines are superimposed above the gathering, expanding outwardly, eliciting a sense of psychic space outside the journalistic plane. In all his works he engages in the transcendental ideals of 'a group'.

Paré lives and works in Brooklyn NYC. Solo exhibitions include 'Blissed Out' at ATM Gallery, NYC, 'Works on Paper' at Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 'White Room Project', at White Columns, NYC. He has been included in international group shows such as 'Awakening of My Secret Brother', Hiromi Yoshii, Tokyo, Japan, 'Hot and Cold #3', Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 'Artists of Invention': A Century of CCA, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, 'Square Root of Drawing', Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, 'Cosmic Wonder', Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, 'Stick/Figure drawing show', MAMA showroom, Rotterdam, 'Kult 48', Deitch Projects, Brooklyn, NY, 'Axxxpresssunizm', Vilma Gold, London.

Shaun Gladwell critically and poetically links personal experience with contemporary culture and historical references through performance, video, painting and sculpture. In the video work Storm Sequence, Gladwell skateboards freestyle on a flat space of concrete above the crashing waves at Bondi. Storm Sequence presents freestyle skateboarding as a J.M.W. Turner painting. The work's beauty derives from the atmosphere and the ambient, not just Gladwell's balletic moves, the artist who wears Turner-esque shaded clothes adds to the mood.

Gladwell lives and works in Sydney, Australia. 'Storm Sequence' was included in the 52nd International Art Exhibition 2007, curated by Robert Storr, La Biennale di Venezia, Italy. His work has been exhibited in major national and international exhibitions, including 'The Mind is a Horse', Bloomberg Space, London (2001); 2006 (27th) Bienal de Sao Paulo, How to Live Together, Brazil; Busan Biennale 2006: Everywhere, South Korea; and Space for Your Future, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT); Yokohama 2005 Triennale of Contemporary Art: Art Circus (Jumping from the Ordinary), Japan; and Space Invaders, Museum Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland.

Matt Frank's sculptures are made from mass-produced industrial plastics and everyday manufacturing materials. They include a wide range of references to high art and popular culture. Franks hand carves large blocks of Styrofoam and sands them down over many hours to produce smoothly finished surfaces for his bizarre and humorous forms. Often creating imagery, which turns back on itself in meaning i.e.: static, almost biblical explosions such as 'Fooooom!!!, his work mocks the permanence of Sculpture today, therefore referencing the importance of a more ephemeral moment in his memory; cartoon and evolving.

Franks lives and works in London. He has exhibited in numerous international exhibitions. Selected solo exhibitions include, 'Art Now' Tate Britain, New Gods, Alison jacques gallery, London, Athens, CAS Commission for The Economists Plaza, London. Group exhibitions include 'Into my world New British Sculpture', The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Connecticut, U.S.A.,'Eau Savage', Lucy Mackintosh Gallery, Lausanne, 'The Future Lasts a Long Time', Le Consortium, Dijon and Blickachsen, Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Germany (in association with Yorkshire Sculpture Park)

Nina Bovasso was born in New York City. Her colourful works on paper and paintings echo an urban cacophony where patterning and regiment have run amok. Inspired by, textiles, Utopian idealism and a 1960's pop sensibility, the obviousness towards the hand made emphasises human touch and the tactile world. In her large scale works on paper there is an overlying pop sensibility, a strategy of accretion using the most basic of marks, a dot and a line, proliferate into a variety of colour, size, shape and surface texture. Here, design and pattern defy regiment and linear logic. With all this activity a sense of unrest is generated, giving a sinister aspect to this hype.

Bovasso exhibits her work internationally Recent solo exhibitions include Bravin Lee programs, NYC, Cleveland MOCA, Ohio, Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf and Galerie Diana Stigter, Amsterdam. Group exhibitions include Out of Site, New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC and Painters and Poets, Ulrich Museum, Wichita, KS,. She has been the recipient of prestigious awards such as a Guggenheim Fellowship, Louis Comfort Tiffany Artist Grant, and New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. Her work has been reviewed and collected widely in the US and abroad. Bovasso currently lives and works in Amsterdam, NL.

The figures in Heidi Britt Anderson's watery dream-scapes depict a 'meeting' of lost inhabitants. Participants floating through forests or perched on toad stools set a theme of utopian communal living and belief in a shared, glorious future. The image of community in this work goes against the grain of contemporary notions of 'participatory' practice with its suggestion of opting out appealing to more transcendental notions. By forging links between imagined and 'natural' imagery, Britt Anderson begins to explore the meeting point between individual agency and the world as a given.

A recent graduate from The San Francisco Institute Of Art BFA Anderson has had a solo exhibition at Aliceday, Brussels, Belgium and Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA

Andy Hsu forages into the detritus of modern day life. He sources and hoards material like an urban hobo discovering the seeds for his work as if collecting flotsam and jetsam on the beach. His practice responds to the immediacy of his surroundings, often paying homage to TV-culture by re-appropriating the ready-made into a more submerged and complex format. The work's scattered forms hovers between an attempt at transmission or the remnants of ritualistic activity.

Hsu educated in San Francisco lives and works in London. He has exhibited in 'Latitude', Fieldgate Street, London, 'Eau Savage', Lucy Mackintosh Gallery, Lausanne, 'New Utopia', Bearspace, London, '8x8x8 MSP/NYC/LON', Soap Factory, Minneapolis, U.S.A.

 

Paul Wacker's drawings and paintings are clearly rooted in a collective memory of hope and despair. His paintings of imaginary make-do architecture fashioned together with string, hemp and bamboo have all the aspiration of an alternative community. Electronic sound plays an important part in setting the tone where images of speakers are often used as a device for creating a central harmonious tone. Dreamlike and not dissimilar from the record cover art of the 1970's Wackers incorporates his strange and spurious leftovers of urban spiritualism to create his trance-like non-places

Wackers lives and works in San Francisco. He has exhibited widely in the USA. He has had solo exhibitions at 'Record Collector', San Francisco Ca and Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco.

Released in 2002 'Hot and Cold' is a collaborative art zine project created in Oakland California by Griffin McPartland and Chris Duncan. Each issue invites up to 20 artists to participate in this hand built, limited edition zine. Photocopied, stenciled, silk-screened, or stickered, since its humble beginnings, Hot & Cold have worked with over 100 artists, and has been shown at galleries throughout the US.

The zine has been recently acquired by 'New York's MOMA' for their permanent collection.

Cathy Ward & Eric Wright create a strange interior world of trees fashioned into creepy relics for the shack. Tattooed and studded with horse brasses plus a range of souvenir ephemera their collaborative practice traces their broad interest in the visual languages of folklore, popular cultural iconography, primitive spiritualism and the dark reality of idealistic pursuits through a range of cultures.

Ward & Wright have exhibited widely in the UK, Europe and in Central and Western USA. They are from the UK and Ohio respectively and live and work in London. Recent projects include Treehugger, MAMA Showroom, Rotterdam, NL, Romantic Detachment, PS1/MoMA New York, assisted by an Arts Council and Grizedale research grant and residency at the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Utah; culminating in Destiny Manifest - Eden's End, Cafe Gallery Projects, London and were winners of the Emergency 3 biennale at Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK.

Joshua Rickard's ideas have definite roots in the exploration of youth and the teenager. Focusing on male portraiture, these figures demonstrate a reluctance to meet face to face with adulthood and the complexities of urban life. These long-haired yipsters slouch around naked and defiant.

Based in Philadelphia, USA, Rickards has exhibited at Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, USA and Lump Gallery, Raleigh, USA

Richard Priestley creates ephemeratic objects and installations from cardboard or DIY materials, the dialogue of which is orientated towards a simulated iconographic culture. Taking the form of clad paneled structures the work exists only in correlation to selected artworks within it. By rallying a group and collective ideas of collaborative spirit Priestley raises questions about authorship and the role of the artist/ curator.

Priestley lives and works in London and is artist-curator at Cell Project Space. Group exhibitions include: Craft, Cell Project Space, London The Future is Stupid, MAMA showroom, Rotterdam, NL. 6th Sharjah International Biennial, curated by Peter Lewis.

Stephanie Davidson paints and draws in her scratchy tattoo style. Her scrawls in biro and felt tip are reminiscent of the doodles in a teenager's school jotter or the graffiti and tattoos often associated with the aspirations of skate and surf culture. Cross-over references from North American Indian textiles to the drop out counterculture of the 1960s inhabit Davidson's intimate and graphically portrayed day dreamy world.

A Recent graduate of The University of Western Ontario, Davidson lives and works in Toronto she has exhibited in grup shows in the USA at Junc Gallery, Los Angeles and SPACE Gallery, Pittsburgh.

Interviewed by Rupert White from Art Cornwall:

http://www.artcornwall.org/interviews/Richard_Priestley.htm