Deep inspiration: an exhibition featuring the work of emerging artists around the theme of breath and breathing.

Opening Date: 2007-Jan-31
Closing Date: 2007-Feb-06
Selected exhibition by Gavin Turk, Rachel Campbell -Johnson

Three pieces were selected for the exhibition,
Mixed media pewter, resin, foam and fabric.

This work continues to explore research into the poetics of objects through manipulation of ready-made materials to provide a new visual rhetoric. Object hood bearing the evidence of hand focus the work. The materials used in these works appear gendered employing stitch and fabric whilst simultaneously they reveal their own history. Choice of image and materials are often contradictory in my work they address the viewer directly divesting objects of their conventional meanings. Combining different materials and exploring their status and quality suggests the plausibility of dialogue, through open-ended narratives.

A small figure made from a single child's duvet crawls under a huge cloud also made from the same duvet. The seam edges of the duvet follow the contour on the body. The materials suggest comfort and bare the traces and stains of childhood but the cloud above is threatening and ominous. A natural response of fight or flight is suggested yet the figure remains vulnerable and threatened by a protective material.

Another piece selected for this exhibition which highlighted the problems of asthma depicted a pair of children's blue shoe lasts resembling lungs connected to a pewter windpipe made from a redundant church organ. A butterfly rests at the opening to the airway.

A third piece consisted of a small image of a figure taken from a hazard warning sign. Carved in insulation foam the work has a transient disposable appearance depicting a potential serious life-threatening situation.