'Nostalgia' in Amsterdam exhibition by Art Number 23

Min Angel Lito Apostolakou Laura Besancon Richard Burton Harry Crown Suzanne de Emmony Jessica Goodwin Mary Herbert Anthony Heywood Rebecca Loweth Helen Morley Sarah Nabarro Amy Oliver Ben Snowden Marion Stuart Rebecca Morcombe Young ...popgrafik

Exhibition Catalogue

Nostalgia

...in Amsterdam

Featuring artworks by the artists represented by our gallery: Kim Wan, Ekaterini Koliakou Ronald Gonzalez

May 2018 Jan Evertsenstraat 8, 1056 EC Amsterdam, Netherlands

INDEX 1. Min Angel 2. Ekaterini Koliakou 3. Harry Crown 4. Amy Oliver 5. Rebecca Loweth 6. Sarah Nabarro 7. Lito Apostolakou 8. Mary Herbert 9. Richard Burton 10. Rebecca Morcombe Young 11. Ben Snowden 12. Anthony Heywood 13. ...popgrafik 14. Laura Besancon 15. Helen Morley 16. Jessica Goodwin 17. Suzanne de Emmony 18. Marion Stuart 19. Kim Wan 20. Ronald Gonzalez

‘Nostalgia’ This is the first part of our traveling exhibition ‘Nostalgia’, that will take place in Amsterdam.

In this exhibition, artists of various mediums and from different backgrounds are called to depict their remembrance of people, locations, experiences and feelings through their work.

The exhibited artworks, cover subjects that relate to memories and the past, such as childhood and family bonds; experiences in abusing relationships; references to the music scene and the night life in the 90s; the exploration of our identities through our traditions; and more.

Painters, sculptors, printmakers and photographers are expressing some of the private sides of their past, as they reveal their personal stories, and share them through their art.

info@artnumber23.uk / www.artnumber23.uk

www.minangel.com / min.angel@mac.com

Min Angel Nostalgia is a shape-shifter, a selective reflex, a prejudiced edit. It can’t be trusted. It is only a faint impression of what once was, yet the distortions of memory echo across time and beat out their rhythms beneath our skins. Concerned with the tipping points between what is known and what is unknown, Cloud Kissing, River Dipping and Dead Lamb are amalgams of experiences and memories, reflecting on chanced events and the ambiguities of recall.

‘River Dipping’, Acrylic on wood block. 14.5cm x 20 cm x 4.5 cm

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www.ekaterinikoliakou.com / messageart@ymail.com

Ekaterini Koliakou I used my hands on canvas for an outstanding opportunity to create a colourful and thick textures which is good memories of myself in Holland as i used to live here by the whole meaningful way of Dutch ART attitudes Nostalgia for the youth and LOVE Figures is MY main concern about themes of MY OWN ART work

‘La Vita e Bella’, 2016, mixed media on canvas, 50 cm x 40 cm

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www.harrycrown.co.uk / harryalexcrown@gmail.com

Harry Crown This series is where I separate myself from the project itself, and tell it through a semi-fictitious character called ‘Mateo’, these carefully selected images are from my journey I took last year. From two and half months, over ten thousand miles, I explored the entire country of Italy in search of abandoned villages and buildings, these images represent a childhood vision that I once had of places frozen in time.

These distorted images represent my memories of these once envisioned places and considered nostalgic. To find out more about this work visit my website to get a limited edition zine.

‘MATEO’, 2018, Silver Gelatin Prints - 30 cm x 40 cm

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amyoliver1970@gmail.com / www.fragilityofself.co.uk

Amy Oliver This piece refers to my memories of the early to mid 90s underground drum ‘n’ bass club scene in Bristol, UK - a 3 year hazy high which eventually led to an amphetamine fuelled burnout. To this day I can’t hear the beat drop without smiling and chewing my teeth.

“Flashback”, 25x25x5cm box framed (12x12cm image within mount) Photo art (mannequins and digital edit)

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rebeccaloweth@gmail.com / www.rebeccaloweth.com

Rebecca Loweth The idea of expectation, reality and artificiality of the holiday experience is integral to the works ‘I’ll be working late tonight’ and ‘Mountain Scrambles’. I am interested in the process of manipulation behind the concept of the polished reality that the commercial souvenir must represent and the influence of the fabricated image on the tourists’ ideals. Exploring the ritual of the authentication and ownership of the experience and in turn the creation of an idealised self-identity, creating a contrived, polished reality that suggests the perhaps inevitable disappointment of the ‘Quixotic quest’.

‘I’ll be working late tonight‘ 22cm x 25cm, folded postcard in frame, 2013

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sarahnatasha433@gmail.com / www.sarahnabarroart.com

Sarah Nabarro In this image, three faces represent multiple places and times, expressing how – in nostalgia – these become blurred. We are in many places at once – but never fully present in any of them. In particular, this piece explores a lost relationship and the selves that existed within it.

There is a desire to challenge form and also narrative in my work. I am interested in the dynamic between something and it’s “other”- text and image, colour and black and white, form and chaos, that which is “alive” and that which is simply an object, and presence and absence. In this instance, negative space is a reflection of absence even in presence – we cannot be present and also in the past.

I am also interested in confusing the distinctions between opposing concepts. In this confusion, it is as though I create, or discover, a kind of hyper-reality – something more expressive and intense than life, or an imitation of life, can ever be. It is “all at once”.

‘Vanished Presents’, 35x25cm, ink, oil pastel and mixed media on paper, 2018

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www.litoapostolakou.com / l.apostolakou@gmail.com

Lito Apostolakou London-based artist Lito Apostolakou uses collage and found objects to explore memory and narrative in archival and physical environments. In “Mapping Mother” the girl on the bicycle is both real and a construct: using the photograph as a nostalgic relic with a hidden history, the artist deconstructs it only to put it together again in an attempt to decipher it. The past is a foreign country – the archive attempts to make it real by mapping it but it can never be captured.

Nostalgia is a narrative that conceals the rough edges of the past. In “Lone Girl” the archival black and white photograph of a servant girl from the late 1930s is not used to evoke any longing for a gone childhood but to convey instead feelings of loss – the ghostly imprints of the girl communicating nostalgia for a childhood that never was, the obscured text voicing the story that was never written.

‘Mapping Mother’, 2018, Collage on canvas

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maryanneherb@gmail.com / www.maryanneherbert.com

Mary Herbert I am interested in memory and the subconscious, and the connection between those images and what is seen see in the present. These paintings are part of a series that I am working on currently. Starting from memory drawings, they can be something glanced a few moments ago or something I saw repeatedly over many years or connected to a single event.

‘Half Light’, 2017, 10x10cm, Oil on board

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richardtaburton@gmail.com / @richardburton

Richard Burton Home IX is part of an ongoing series of paintings in which I am exploring ideas around memory, place and belonging. The motifs I use are sometimes derived from the kitsch imagery found on traditional crockery; this has led to the inclusion of an illustrative, comic-book line, which in turn allows me to exaggerate and be playful with the composition. In Home IX I glued part of a duvet cover onto the canvas as a way of introducing an everyday pattern with exciting painterly qualities.

‘Home IX’, 50 x 40 cm, oil and acrylic on canvas and cotton, 2017

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www.rebeccayoungartist.com / rebecca34young@btopenworld.com

Rebecca Morcombe Young Digital prints on satin captured merely as a series of original yet generic tourist photos allow us to have possession over visual souvenirs. Derived from one of the most iconic cities on earth, Las Vegas’ neon boneyard is the chosen starting point for visually complex kaleidoscopic configurations, now a signature style in the artist’s collage practice.

Inviting audiences to follow a pictorial detour and interpret the origin of the image, these beautifully intricate and rhythmic distortions of postcard worthy landscapes reawaken historical significance for communities and visitors alike. Nostalgic for those who experienced the real deal those factual and exotic heyday happenings and visitors of today, witnessing the neon structures as their silent energy rests in peace.

Using material which is “readily available” London based collage artist Rebecca Morcombe Young uses imagery of previous and current travel in her digital and analogue works.

‘The Golden Nugget Saga’ 1-3, Digital image printed on Satin, 40 x 40 cm (each), 2017

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www.bensnowdenartist.com / info@bensnowdenartist.com

Ben Snowden My work explores the relationships and ideas between subject and emotion, combining visceral energy with experience through painting. Inspired by the human form, poetry and the natural world, I use the language of abstraction to create work that emphasises on mood and expression to determine the overall feeling of the paintings. I predominantly work with enamel and household paints on materials such as paper, board, card, cloth and wood that I find in everyday life. My main focus is to create work that evokes the senses and ultimately communicates a positive and constructive view of the world.

‘Love is in my head’. Mixed Media on board. 25cm x 22cm. 2016

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www.anthonyheywood.co.uk / aheywood@uca.ac.uk

Anthony Heywood A primary aim in my theme; memories of locations, relationships, experiences, people and nostalgia is to consider how our internal and external world is changing and evaluate how everything in the body environment is affected by and changed by both time and changes to our air, food and climate, I intend to create works which respond to the current question on how our vital earth’s resources can be upcycled into and within the sculptural context.

‘Mammory2’, 40cm long x 25 cm, mixed media, 2018

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info.popgrafik@gmail.com / www.popgrafik.uk

...popgrafik With a creative practice centred primarily upon the process of the silkscreen print [serigraph], there is an interest towards the expressive and poetic qualities found within the incidental trace and abandoned half-buried emotive remains of the personal.

Appropriating modes and techniques of the street poster, propaganda and public information signage; playing with the juxtaposition of image and text, of artwork and title, to present a body of artwork with allusion towards the transient emotive presence held within the traces, marks and fractured narrative of the communal environment.

... [and] here, now, in tender embrace: like some heart’s veneer [stripped; forsaken] Medium : Silkscreen Print. Ink: Aluminium, Black, Varnish / Black. Paper: Somerset Satin White [300gsm].Dimensions : Image: 08 x 11cm; Paper: 16 x 22cm. Frame [w/Glass]: 38 x 42cm [approx.]. 2016

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www.laurabesancon.com / laurabesancon@network.rca.ac.uk

Laura Besancon This photographic series aims at questioning objective and subjective photography, questioning truth and evidence through a series of constructed self portraits evoking an unknown identity in a real decaying private space.

In this series the photograph is used for a subjective desire to reconstruct memory of an ancestor in her real past, private space. It also relates to the personal nostalgia of the photographer, for the memories experienced in this decaying space.

This project therefore include elements which may seem more real than others, question evidence and objectivity in photography, also offering different subjective interpretations.

Digital Photographs, 2015, 10 pieces series

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hjlmorley@gmail.com / @helenmorley.embroidery

Helen Morley The work was aimed at evoking feelings of reminiscence by recreating personal vague memories. I found that the increased isolation of the image felt, personally, more like an isolated memory and the drawn-out stitches that mimicked the fading of the image, emphasised the nature of remembering; the clear subject of attention within the memory and then the fading details around the edge. More and more as the project developed, the stitching came to have a domestic feel for me personally; they were small and hung in frames, arranged on the wall in no particular order, reminiscent in my mind of a wall of family photos.

‘The Lagoon’, 20cm x 20cm, Free-motion embroidery on fabric, 2017

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www.jessicasphotography.net / jgphotography.995@gmail.com

Jessica Goodwin The images relate to the theme because before they were taken the idea was to create a set of nostalgic images inspired by lost memories and things that once were. Shot in a way of abandonment due to being no people seen in any of the photographs, and in Black and White film the lack of colour used in the images help to create the vibe of the past and helps to give the viewer the chance to convey their own emotions and what they see in the images.

‘The Lost Smile’, 120mm Medium Format Film, Photograph printed in a Photographic Darkroom. 2017

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sdeemmony@me.com / www.suzannedeemmony.com

Suzanne de Emmony I’m interested in the slippery quality of memory, particularly around the subject of childhood.

How memory re-constructs events and/or fills the gaps in our recall, creating an alternative narrative to replace the unpalatable or alleviate the unease of a child’s ‘not knowing’. I play with the idea of claiming, fracturing and reforming to allow an untried narrative to materialize.

A continuing interest in ideas around absence and presence run alongside an evolving fascination with collections and our relationship with objects. I’m exploring themes of transformation and ideas around shifts in time and a notion of haunting - how the past haunts our present through nostalgia and memories and through the images and objects that surround us.

‘To Be Where I have Not Been III’, 20cm x 20cm, Free-motion embroidery on fabric, 2017

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www.marionstuart.co.uk / marionjohns@hotmail.co.uk

Marion Stuart Marion Stuart’s ceramic tools are a part of an ongoing examination of carpentry tools inherited from her father. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a ship building company and as he was the son of an impoverished widow, his tools were bought by a local charity, the tools changed the direction of his life. In this narrative she communicates the story of the tools and also a story of the men of this time and the men we know and their tools. So many of us have tools in sheds and workshops our fathers, grandfathers and uncles have used and are now disused these familiar items in ceramic form bring us a sense of nostalgia like an echo.

‘Box Plane’, 15cmx 5cm x7cm, porcleain, paper, clay, 2016

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info@kimwanart.com / www.kimwanart.com

Kim Wan I paint my self portraits at night, each one is individual, a testament to that time and place, capturing a reflection, inside and out, only ever painted in one sitting...each new and different, but of the same face... no two ever alike, and yet integrally profound in their rendering. They represent the life and events of my sitting at that exact moment, I couldn't tell you what has happened, time and memory are transient.

‘Self portraits’, 2017/18, 25x20 cms, mixed media on canvas

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www.ronaldgonzalezstudio.com / rsculpture@yahoo.com

Ronald Gonzalez Over the years I have made a number of human figures out of found objects and detritus from my surroundings. I have been especially interested in making small solitary,decaying doll like bodies. This figure stands inside a small black box, now untouched, as if on a tiny stage for a moment in time as a final place of nostalgia, deformation, and mortality.

‘Figure in Nich’, sculpture, 10 x 8 x 3 cm, 2016

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Nostalgia Art Exhibition

Jan Evertsenstraat 8, 1056 EC Amsterdam, Netherlands