The Somme ArtMoorHouse London Exhibition's Brochure




INGRID BARBER | JEREMY CLARK | ROB MILLER | HELEN GRAY | MEHAN FERNANDO | MICHAEL ISAAC | LAUREN ADAMS | KAREN BLOCK | REZA BAGHERI | CHARLOTTE POTTER | BRANDON JACKSON

5 T H N O V E M B E R 2016 - 30 T H N O V E M B E R 2016 ARTMOORHOUSE MOOR HOUSE, 120 LONDON WALL LONDON EC2Y5ET

The Somme A COLLECTIVE EXHIBITION OF WORKS BY ELEVEN ARTISTS WHO WORK ACROSS DIVERSE PRACTICES, AND CHALLENGE IDEAS OF MAKING, CRAFT AND MATERIALITY: INGRID BARBER | JEREMY CLARK | ROB MILLER | HELEN GRAY | MEHAN FERNANDO | MICHAEL ISAAC | LAUREN ADAMS | KAREN BLOCK | REZA BAGHERI | CHARLOTTE POTTER | BRANDON JACKSON

5 TH N OVEMBER 2016 - 30 TH N OVEMBER 2016 ARTMOORHOUSE I MOOR HOUSE, 120 LONDON WALL, LONDON EC2Y5ET

EXHIBITION CONCEPT: INGRID BARBER - JEREMY CLARK - ROB MILLER Exhibition Curated by: ELISA MARTINELLI AND AVRA ALEVROPOULOU BROCHURE CONCEPT:

ARTMOORHOUSE LONDON

All Images ©ADC

First published in 2016 by ArtMoorHouse All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise, without first seeking the permission of the copyright owners and publishers.

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“Evil and the incarnate fiend can alone be master of this war, and no glimmer of

God’s hand can be seen anywhere. Sunset and sunrise are blasphemous, they are mockeries to man, only the black rain out of the bruised and swollen clouds all through the bitter black of night is fit atmosphere in such a land.” - Letters from the front, Paul Nash

“How can we fail to see that, in the wake of the hecatomb of the Great War, when Braque and Otto Dix found themselves on opposite sides of the trenches in the mud of the Somme, modern art for its part forgot about the wound and concentrated on the knife”1 . A century later, the collective known as Acid Drop Copse2 seeks to reflect upon this wound, making work that enables a contemporary audience to reflect upon this most abject of transgressions, that still uncomfortably echos in today’s political landscape.

ArtMoorHouse is pleased to present “The Somme” the first London showing of the group timed to coincide with Remembrance Day which will run for a month from November 7th. The battle was fought across a 20-mile-long front, as both sides ebbed and flowed over the same ground; dead bodies, stagnant shell holes, entrenched men living in mud and wooden constructions, a desolate landscape populated by black dying trees and gangrenous rotting flesh. But by the end of the 6-month battle, British and French troops had advanced only 6 miles, with over 1,000,000 casualties.

So many battles were fought for no gain, so many people died for no gain.

1Paul Virilio, Art and Fear 2Acid Drop Copse was a wood in the battlefields of the Somme, nick-named by the soldiers after the tart acid-drop boiled sweet they remembered from home. A|D|C collective (formed in 2016) is currently a disparate group of eleven artists who work across diverse practices, and challenge ideas of making, craft and materiality.

 

JEREMY CLARK

The Silent Lives of Others Sculptural portraits of people that exist in another time, in another place, gods, and mythical creatures, the silent lives of others.

The Somme is a frozen moment in time, a war of terrifying immensity that enveloped the lives of so many, sucking them into the maelstrom. These lives now silent. Sculpture is a powerful means of connection - for this exhibition with men and women involved in the war, to glimpse into specific pasts, how they were plucked from their jobs and sent to the front. Many did not return.

Others were scarred physically and mentally from their experiences, the damage passed onto friends and family. The cycle of war moves to target new victims in its continuous ebb and flow.

The Somme is just as relevant today as ever. jerryclarkdesigns.co.uk

 

Daniel Warner - 2016 - Stoneware Ceramic - 40 x 23 x 34 cm

 

News from the Front - 2016- Stoneware Ceramic -32 x 22 x 35 cm

Beast of War – Bestiae Bellum, 2016 - Stoneware Ceramic -38 x 38x 42 cm




INGRID BARBER Ingrid Barber is an artist and a maker. A narrative thread informs her work and a fascination with memory and history is at the heart of her practice. Materials and found objects are key to her methodology. Her work is created out of a need to deal with life’s transience. People and places pass and disappear, she strives to pickle and preserve them for the next generation. Memories in a jar to be kept until they are reopened and reinvented by the future.

In 2015 a memory project entitled “If These Walls Could Speak” about a derelict house sold to a private collector. Meanwhile, the Fine Art Society in London exhibited “The Other Side of the Hill”, a large-scale encaustic piece celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

In 2016, inspired by her relative Sydney Hurst who died in World War One, Ingrid created work to commemorate the Somme with the art collective Acid Drop Copse. 2017 will see a solo exhibition in Surrey and further collaborations with ADC in the UK and Europe.

It is the personal aspect of loss that forms the inspiration and focus of her work for this exhibition. This body of work is dedicated to Sydney Hurst. ingridbarber.com

Previous Page Danke schön, 2016 Box and objects under glass - 46 x 30 x 10 cm

 

Sitting Target, 2016 - Photomontage in resin on board - 82 x 82 cm

After Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wanderer above the Sea of fog” 2016 -Wax on board with toy soldiers and pewter - 125 x 75 cm




Coming back is harder, 2016 - oil and sewn canvas -100 x 80 cm

 

ROB MILLER The Violent Act // The objects selected for The Somme exhibition concern making & destruction, creation & obliteration - metaphors perhaps for the fruitless actions and radical failures of this battle.

The work on show forms part of a series exploring the elusive but enduring status of objects and thingness, through an indexical link to the dual conditioning agents of making and materiality. robmiller.org

Ballistic Globes, 2015 Sand-cast lead, solder, 8.5 x 8.5 cm each




Ballistic Box, 2015 Sand-cast lead, steel screws, 5 x 7 x 10 cm




Attrition Infliction on the Sward - 2016 - Oil on Lead - 40 x 40 cm

MEHAN FERNANDO My current practice explores painting and drawing that is fed through my interests of nature, horror and fantasy that incorporates the hybrid creature. I also incorporate my young experiences of war and woe from the Sri Lankan Civil War. My work is often in stark contrast, with a distinct methodology and context. The work is established through the combination of a miniature painting process and the intimacy of the Northern Gothic tradition, with iconography that is sometimes violent or disturbing. I am particularly interested in how material, scale and image can function as complementary elements, revealing the beautifully disturbing creations in which propels curiosity and narrative.

My canvas is lead material. The texture and appearance of lead reveals the gritty coldness of war, and the leads toxicity relates to the anguish. Lead is a durable and pliable material used in war machinery and weapons. The paintings incorporate detailed imagery of the reality that was centred within WWI.


 Above: Gas! - 2016 - Oil on Canvass - 50 x 50 cm Next page: Deafening Silence - 2016 - Oil on Canvass - 50 x 50 cm

CHARLOTTE POTTER This exhibition has given me the opportunity to depict the human tragedy of The Somme through the medium of paint. A battle lasting five months, when so many lives were lost, so many hearts of wives, sweethearts and children broken. The published letters give an insight into the personal drama, the fear and sadness and are a poignant reminder of this terrible conflict in our history. Inspired by such literature, written words form an integral part of each monochrome image.

Both paintings portray a view from the trench. Deafening Silence tells of interminable waiting. “… This waiting is unbearable”, handwritten in red across the top of the image, gives the viewer an insight into the soldier’s mental state. Waiting for the enemy or waiting for death?

In Gas, the skeletal outline of a masked face stares out of the canvas. Has the whistle signalling gas already been given? The grim, inhumane surroundings loom behind and above. Alive but already buried the words “Dug the graves with a heavy heart…”, again in red tell us the soldier’s thoughts. charlotterosapotter.co.uk

 

HELEN J GRAY Helen J Gray Is a Surrey based artist specialising in screen printing and oil painting. Her work is informed by the colour and light of landscapes, through which the qualities of painterly abstraction is explored by the free execution of marks. Her vision is stimulated by suggesting a sense of place and embracing the opportunities offered by her medium.

When addressing the subject of The Somme centenary her response became somber and respectful, striving to evoke a sense of reflection, gratitude and commemoration. Being acutely aware of the young age of the men involved caused her to remove all sense of movement and life. Her intention was to capture a bleak moment and allow that to resonate through a stripped back approach; an essence of time and place.

Above: Like the Hell It Is - 2016 - Mono Screen Print - 50 x 75 cm Previous page: It’s Far Better To Face The Bullets Than Be Killed By The Bomb At Home - 2016 - Screen Print - 60 cm x 75cm

No Man’s Land - 2016 - Screen Print - 80 x 110cm

Over The Top - 2016 - Screen Print - 80 x 110 cm

KAREN J BLOCK Karen J Block is a photographer and artist, she enjoys documenting people and places. These images are part of a series called Connected. They are about her father John Wallace, who found out he was adopted at the age of 69. Connected explores the dichotomy between nature and nurture, a journey of self discovery.

The Somme personifies the fragility of life and although so many young men were all there together, most died alone. This encapsulates the ultimate privacy and uniqueness of personal identity and these images are the photographer’s personal take on a series of her imagined grandfather’s life (using her father as the model).

Sociologists, Peter and Brigitte Berger, said in 1981, “The biography of the individual, from the moment of birth, is the story of his relations with others”. karenjblock.com

Somme, Untitled - 2016 - C-type on aluminium Dibond.

Limited edition of 5 + 2 artists proof - 50.8 x 50.8 cm

 

Somme, Untitled - 2016 - C-type on aluminium Dibond. Limited edition of 5 + 2 artists proof - 50.8 x 50.8 cm

 

Somme, Untitled - 2016 - C-type on aluminium Dibond. Limited edition of 5 + 2 artists proof - 50.8 x 50.8 cm

 

Somme, Untitled - 2016 - C-type on aluminium Dibond. Limited edition of 5 + 2 artists proof - 50.8 x 50.8 cm

71” x 25“ x 82”- 2016 Timber, wooden flooring, palates, sand bags 80 x 55 x 208 cm

MICHAEL ISAAC The Constructed sculpture aims to create the sense of confinement similar to that felt by the soldiers in the trenches. The dimensions aim to reflect that of an original trench from the Somme (Approx 7 ft deep/tall) and the aesthetic of the structure builds upon the viewers experience with the use of reclaimed materials.

Work undertaken by the artist to replace the floor of a Scout hut (6th Richmond “Lady Archers Own”, built in 1916) lead to the uncovering of original wooden tongue and grove flooring within the hut. By rethinking the material properties of the salvaged flooring, the piece of work produced aims to introduce a direct link from the era celebrated in this exhibit to how the materials are re-presented.

 

LAUREN ADAMS Lauren Adams is a textile artist and maker, currently based in London. She is enthused by the natural processes of deterioration and decay established within the botanical and human worlds. Through extensive material experimentation, Adams analyses the mortality and the fragility of the human condition and the inevitability of death, presenting a juxtaposing view of the paradoxical relationship in which lies between life and death. The accentuation of correlating colour, form and structure enables her to metaphorically demonstrate the transition between being alive and no longer existent; unmediated methodologies deploying organic and raw material in which are analogous to ageing.

Untitled - 2015 - Latex, thread, flowers - Dimensions variable

REZA BAGHERI “Reza is an abstract painter who is interested in the radical transformation of materials, the creation of memory, and references to the ancient world.” rahainspiration.co.uk

End of the war - 2016 - Oil on canvas - 100 x 100 cm

 

Bullets - 2016 - Silver - Boxed, 35 x 35 cm

BRANDON JACKSON Brandon Jackson is a bespoke jewellery artist, creating and recreating natural forms with his individual and evolving style. He negotiates with natures’ design to adorn the human body, with inspiration deriving from the exploration and fascination of the natural forms found within the world. He believes nature brings endless design possibilities to develop further in the hands of artists.

The work for The Somme exhibition takes the fluidity found in nature, using tessellated bulletlike structures to create a unique silver bracelet.

This is a reminder perhaps of the havoc

wrought on the natural world during the battle, and that we are intrinsically bound to the world we live in. These bullet-like forms are reminiscent of thorns or teeth, but man has unfortunately excelled in the arms race that may lead ultimately to his own demise.

 

Acid Drop Copse was a wood in the battlefields of the Somme, nick-named by the soldiers after the tart acid-drop boiled sweet they remembered from home. A|D|C collective (formed in 2016) is currently a disparate group of eleven artists who work across diverse practices, and challenge ideas of making, craft and materiality. artistdesignermaker.com

 

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