Shape_Shifters Arthouse1, Grange St, London, SE1 12 -22 October 2016 Sasha Bowles, Rosalind Davis, Justin Hibbs, Evy Jokhova and Gibson / Martelli Curated by Rosalind Davis
Shape_Shifters is an exhibition of site-specific work resulting from a residency at Arthouse 1 by six artists who all transform shape, space, environment and experience through their multidisciplinary approaches. Some of the connecting themes that the artists investigate are modes of display, illusionary experience, architecture and reconstruction of space.
All of the artists acknowledge in their practices the central importance of generative dialogue and exchange alongside experimentation, risk taking and research to their process of artmaking. In this respect they work collaboratively (though not as a collective); whether through the creation and development of their work in conversation with others, curatorial projects, residencies and exhibition making. Photo courtesy of Sasha Bowles
Left-right Rosalind Davis, Justin Hibbs, Rosalind Davis and Gibson Martelli.Photo courtesy of Sasha Bowles
Left-right Evy Jokhova, Gibson Martelli, Rosalind Davis.Photo courtesy of Sasha Bowles
Image front Sasha Bowles. Photo courtesy of Sasha Bowles
L-R Justin Hibbs, Evy Jokhova, Sasha Bowles. Photo courtesy of Sasha Bowles
Sasha Bowles, Photo courtesy of Sasha Bowles
Photo courtesy of Sasha Bowles
Gibson / Martelli
Gibson / Martelli
Photo courtesy of Evy Jokhova
Rosalind Davis (painting) Justin Hibbs (sculpture).
Photo courtesy of Evy Jokhova
Sasha Bowles and Gibson/Martelli
Justin Hibbs. Mirror Installation. Image right David X Green
Justin Hibbs. The Modern Mirror. Film
Gibson / Martelli create illusory worlds of virtual reality, where artworks are activated through the visual codes of Dazzle Camouflage. Unlike traditional camouflage which operates on the principle of concealment, dazzle camouflage uses complex arrangements of highcontrast, interrupted geometric patterns that confuse the calculation of a ship’s range, speed and bearing in an enemy’s optical gunnery rangefinder.
The borders between the real and the illusory are blurred in Justin Hibbs installations which disorientate and subvert our perceptual experience of space. Combining analogue and digital modes of representation, production and display these environments negotiate the changing terms of our engagement with the reality of the modern world around us. “Hibbs’s works are worldly, imperfect at the outset.” Martin Herbert. Rosalind Davis’ paradoxical works imagine a multifaceted set of possibilities for visualizing and creating spaces which are complex, disorienting and subjective. Beginning with the rationalised objective geometries of architecture, multiple spaces are constructed and reconfigured across multiple disciplines, connecting and disconnecting physical and psychological boundaries in 2 and 3d. Engaging with the everyday as well as possible and impossible futures
Evy Jokhova often responds to environments and the works of others as a form of extended collaborative process surveys the disparity between plan and reality. Exploring social narratives and remembered ‘truths’, Jokhova questions her own subjective role in and relationship to society, history, landscape, architecture and public ‘signifiers’ such as monuments. The complex relationships between the perceived, the imagined and the accepted norm are driving factors in Jokhova’s multi-faceted practice. The work selected for Shape_Shifters will transform and adapts itself to the space and the other artists' work. Sasha Bowles’ work deals with illusion, interventions, metamorphosis, taxonomies and provisional structures. Starting from Old Masters works Bowles’ process is an evolving loop. Through intervention on book pages and postcards, she re-presents and subverts classical narratives, cloaking the figures to open up new possibilities. This process also references classical sculptures which are reproduced as ephemeral sculptures, photographed and extended through painted and digital mediation, culminating in new interpretations.
Sasha Bowles completed her MA at Wimbledon College of Art in 2013. Bowles had a recent solo show Doo-plis-i-tee at 286 Gallery London, (2016). Selected group exhibitions include: Complicity, Collyer Bristow Gallery, The Crash Open & Photo and Print Open (Charlie Dutton), Bonfire of the Vanities, (Display Gallery), Discernible (Zeitgeist Arts Projects), Catalyst, Lubomirov Angus Hughes Gallery& Husk Gallery, Barbican Arts Trust, The Lynn Painter Stainers,The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (invited artist) and The Discerning Eye (winning the Benton Prize). In 2014 she was selected for Oriel Davis, The Open West, Future Map and Discerning Eye. Bowles co-curated and exhibited in ‘Bodies That Matter’ at ArtLacuna and co-produced The Bodies That Matter 3 publication. She also exhibited ‘A Virtual Topography’, at Husk Gallery. In 2015 Bowles exhibited in group exhibitions at Standpoint Gallery, Husk Gallery, Day + Gluckman, The Crypt Gallery, Lubomirov AngusHughes and The Display Gallery. In 2016 Bowles co-curated COUNTER_FITTERS at the Geddes Gallery, King’s Cross. Bowles has work in private and public collections in Britain, Europe and America. She lives and works in London. www.sashabowles.co.uk
Rosalind Davis is an artist and a graduate of The Royal College of Art (2005) and Chelsea College of Art (2003) and curator at Collyer Bristow Gallery. Davis has exhibited nationally and internationally. Davis has had solo shows at the Bruce Castle Museum (2013), John Jones Project Space, Julian Hartnoll Gallery (2009) The Residence Gallery (2007) and The Stephen Lawrence Centre. Selected group exhibitions have been at the Courtauld Institute, Standpoint Gallery, Transition Gallery, the Lion and Lamb Gallery, The Roundhouse, Phoenix Brighton, ASC Gallery, APT Gallery, The Modern Language Experiment, CoExist, Lubomirov Angus Hughes Gallery& Husk Gallery and she has been selected for The ING Discerning Eye and the Lynn Painters Stainers Prize in the past Her work is held in a number of private collections and a public collection.
Davis is also the curator at Collyer Bristow Gallery, London. Previous cocuratorial projects have been at Standpoint Gallery, Geddes Gallery (with Bowles and Jokhova) and with ZAP at Bond House Gallery (ASC). Davis previously co-directed and developed two innovative and dynamic artist’s educational, membership and exhibition arts organizations; Zeitgeist Arts Projects (ZAP 2012-15) and Core Gallery (2009-11,) based in London. Davis also teaches across the country and is a published writer. www.rosalinddavis.co.uk
Justin Hibbs studied at Central St. Martins, London. He has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally, and has also curated a series of artist-led exhibitions. Solo shows include Alias_Re_Covered (2015) at Carroll / Fletcher; PARA/SITE (2013) and Secondary Modern (2010) at Christinger De Mayo gallery, Zurich, Switzerland; Altneuland (2007), Lucy Mackintosh Gallery, Lausanne, Switzerland; Metroparadisiac (2006) and I'll Wait for you (2005) at the One in the Other Gallery, London. Recent group exhibitions (2016) include Abstraction II Arroniz Gallery / Mexico, Complicity, Collyer Bristow Gallery, Counterfitters, Geddes Gallery. London (2016) Catalyst, Lubomirov Angus Hughes Gallery & Husk Gallery / London (2015) Pencil/Line/Eraser (2014), Carroll / Fletcher, London; Superstructures (2013), Arronitz Arte, Mexico City; Oh My Complex, Kunstverien Stuttgart, Germany; Temples to The Domestic, Clifford Chance, London; Lost Properties, Coleman Projects, London; Polemically Small, Torrence Art Museum, California (all 2012); and Dawnbreakers (2010), Hansard Gallery, Southampton. His curatorial projects include shows at Galerie DS Contemporary Art, Belgium, the University of the Arts Gallery, London and Lucy Mackintosh Gallery His work was selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2010. www.carrollfletcher.com/artists/73-justin-hibbs/
Evy Jokhova is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice engages with dialogue and relationships between Social anthropology, Architecture, Philosophy and Art. A graduate of MA Political Communications, Goldsmiths College and MA Fine Art, Royal College of Art, Jokhova is the recipient of the BSR Bursary Award (2016), Art Council Individual Grant Award (2012) and has been nominated for John Ruskin Prize (2014), Griffin Art Prize (2014) and Conran Foundation Awards (2011). She has been artist-in-residence at das weisse haus, Vienna (2016), Florence Trust, London (2008-09) and Schauraum, Vienna (2009). Recent exhibitions include: 'We work in the dark...', Rye Creative Centre, UK; 'In between #1', das weisse haus, Vienna, AT; 'Prison Drawing Project', Scarbrough, UK; 'Mimesis' (with Amelia Critchlow), Westminster Reference Library, London, UK; 'Sketch for a British Business', Lubomirov/Angus-Hughes, London, UK; 'Allotment: Revolution', SALT Gallery, Istanbul, TR; 'No one lives in the real world', Standpoint Gallery, London, 'Play/Game/Place/State', Day + Gluckman, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, UK. Current exhibitions are: 'Staccato', site-specific installation in the chapel at House of St Barnabas, London with Marcelle Joseph Projects and Telling Tales at Collyer Bristow Gallery. Jokhova is the founder of the Allotment project - a series of collaborative dinners and talks about the relationship between the politics of food and society. www.evyjokhova.com
Over the past decade Gibson/Martelli have shown nationally and internationally, undertaking a series of commissions and residencies in America, Canada, Australia and the UK. Formerly known as igloo, their first collaboration WindowsNinetyEight was nominated for a BAFTA. They have received awards and commissions internationally, from National Endowment for Science Technology and Art (NESTA), the Henry Moore Foundation,the Arts Council England, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). They exhibit in galleries, institutions, theatres and festivals around the world including The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) the Barbican, SIGGRAPH, ISEA, The Royal Opera House, Royal Festival Hall & 52nd Venice Biennale. Their work is included in various private and public collections, and most recently they were artists-in-residence at Dartmouth College (Hanover, USA) with a solo exhibition at the Jaffe-Friede Gallery Recent and Upcoming exhibitions and talks include: Digital Revolution, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens; Watch-Me-Move, VDNH, Moscow; Lumen Prize Exhibition, Calahan Gallery, New York; Complicity at Collyer Bristow Gallery, London and VR UK Conference, Ravensbourne College, London. http://www.gibsonmartelli.com