THANK YOU!

A Massive thank-you to all of you that visited COUNTER_FITTERS last week.

We hope you enjoyed the exhibition.

We had over 300 visitors and amazing positive feedback.

Please do contact us if you would like to join our mailing list for any further exhibitions.

E-Mail: sashabowles@gmail.com 

Click the names below to connect to artists web-sites.

HERMIONE ALLSOPP / HELEN BERMINGHAM / SASHA BOWLES 

ROSALIND DAVIS  JANE HAYES GREENWOOD  / JUSTIN HIBBS  

EVY JOKHOVA  /  NICK KAPLONY  / CAROLINE LAMBARD 

ALEX MARCH  / MARION MICHELL / MICHAELA NETTELL

FREDDIE ROBINS / LEX THOMAS / DAVID BEN WHITE 

ALICE WILSON / BEN WOODESON

Here are a few images from the Artist's Talk on Saturday evening.

Caroline Lambard kicks off the artist's talk

Evy Jokhova brings everyone outside to view her banner

Freddie Robins talking about her work

COUNTER_FITTERS was organised and co-curated by SASHA BOWLES, ROSALIND DAVIS & EVY JOKHOVA


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WE ARE OPEN  12 -7PM    Artist Walk and Talk Saturday 27th February  5.30-6.30pm
A Few Photos

A massive thank you to everyone who came to the opening on Thursday, and to all who came on Friday, it has been amazing.

Last day today we are open from 12 - 7pm and there will be an
Artist's Walk and Talk from 5.30pm

All are welcome.

COUNTER_FITTERS    David Ben White     Rosalind Davis

Nick Kaplony

Amazing spaces and changes of atmosphere as you traverse the different spaces.

Alice Wilson  Sasha Bowles

Hermione Allsopp      Freddie Robins       David Ben White

Marion Michell     Alex March

Alex March

                                                                                    

Evy Jokhova      Jane Hayes Greenwood

This is just a small taste of the incredible works by  the COUNTER_FITTER artists  -----  And there is so much more, come down today to see this beautiful dilapidated building seeped in domestic history. Each artist's work has a poignant resonance with different aspects of this space and the surrounding area of King's Cross-enhancing/ interweaving/ subtly changing. A fleeting chance to engage with a piece of King's Cross history  - captured in time- resonating personal histories - balanced on the edge of change.

Hope to see you later.....We close at 7pm!!!!

.......and then we are gone.........................

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CORNELIA MARLAND       Answers a few questions
GEDDES GALLERY MANAGER
www.corneliamarland.com

After studying Social Anthropology and Art History at SOAS Cornelia has spent the past five years working on various art projects with a focus on place, participation and community involvement. She co-ordinates and curates exhibitions and also runs a project involving collaborative mapmaking in public spaces across London. Cornelia has recently started managing Geddes Gallery, which will stay open as an alternative exhibition venue until March 2016.

Jim Geddes 

Can you tell me a little of the history of the Geddes Gallery?

The gallery space was the wonderful Italian deli, K C Continental, run by Leo Giordani, for 50 years until May 2015 when he retired. I would often shop at the deli and always loved popping in to pick up some pasta and Italian treats.

I was using an empty shop building on Caledonian Road for 'Co-ordinate', (a group show I organised based around mapping King's Cross), when I was told about hundreds of sculptures made by local artist Jim Geddes which had been stored in the basement of the deli since Geddes had died in 2009. I was completely mesmerised by the sculptures and spent the next two years cleaning and cataloguing them while also looking for a space in which to exhibit the collection. It felt impossible because no existing gallery was interested since he wasn't a well known artist and anywhere I found available to rent was ridiculously expensive. A local family who own the deli mentioned the space could possibly be used while it was empty awaiting a new tenant. It was perfect and we held the exhibition in the deli in May 2015. Due to the success of the show I have been able to run the space as an exhibition venue until it has to be renovated. It felt fitting to name the space after him.

Have you enjoyed the experience of running Geddes Gallery?

Yes! I have loved working with so many different groups and enjoyed seeing the space transform for each exhibition. However it hasn't come without its challenges, the maintenance of the old building is constant....my DIY skills have certainly improved!

Can you describe your practice in a few words?

My work involves working closely with others. I run spaces, curate shows, coordinate projects, run workshops including The Mapping Project which involves working in public spaces with local communities.

What is your earliest memory of art?

Both my parents are artists, so I grew up with art all around me. My mum was very influenced by Frida Kahlo and had posters and books of her paintings all around the house. I remember how they scared and intrigued me at the same time.

Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?

I love working in non-white cube spaces. I have organised shows in a few empty shops spaces and always found them to be the most exciting and engaging experiences. Walking into an old shop or house feels very different to walking into a white cube space, less intimidating, maybe less clinical. It often makes me engage with the work in a very different way.

What is the future for art outside the gallery context?

I think this is the future. Affordable spaces to show art are becoming harder and harder to find. It is interesting to see how inventive artists have to be, opening their homes up for exhibitions or using existing empty buildings. I hope this is something that will become easier to do.

What was your first experience of Kings Cross?

I rented my first flat in Kings Cross when I was 18. Even though the flat was dingy and small I loved the feeling like I was in the centre of London. I have always found the contrast between the frantic pace of Kings Cross and the strong sense of community really fascinating.

If you could meet one artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

I would have loved to have met the namesake of the gallery, Jim Geddes. I was obsessed with his sculptures the moment I saw them. They have a very human, slightly grotesque quality - I find it fascinating how they can be truthful, painful and at the same time very comical.

What is your greatest weakness?

Cheese, always cheese......

What projects do you have coming up in the future?

I have some exciting projects coming p with Actionspace, an organisation that is based at Cockpit Arts in Holborn and work with artists who have learning diabilities. We are getting ready for an exhibition at Geddes called 'Shop of Curiosity' opening 18th March. I am also working on the engagement programme for this year's Cally Festival, which takes place on Caledonian Road every year.

The Mapping Project   Holloway Road

www.corneliamarland.com
twitter: @CorneliaMarland

Education: Social Anthropology and Art History at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), 2011

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JUSTIN HIBBS    A Few Questions and Answers
www.carrollfletcher.com

Across his practice, Justin Hibbs picks apart the mechanics of spacial perception and representation, drawing upon social, political and aesthetic agendas encoded within architectural structures. In particular, much of his work is renegotiation of the visual language and ideological legacies of modernism, seeking to establish and question relationships between real and idealised notions of space. This enacted through a uniquely multi-disciplinary approach that incorporates painting, drawing, sculpture and architectural interventions.

Central to each of these disciplines is drawing. In Hibbs' earlier work, drawn interventions grow parasite-like from a 'host' image, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two that offers the potential for a re-imagination of existing forms. Once completed, a work's deconstruction often leads to a new form of production in an alternative format. Cyclical processes of production, re-invention and reproduction are at play. Multiple two and three-dimensional forms of representation and production form an evolutionary feedback loop that connects and interconnects various bodies of work through time.

More recently he has worked with site-specific installations and sculptures that engage directly with the specific conditions of the architectural space itself. Vinyl tape or linear wooden constructions are used as a drawing medium to translate ideas at life-scale directly onto walls, windows and physically into the space. These immersive architectural interventions allow the viewer to navigate the space and work, providing a stage set for an individual relational and perceptual response. They indicate Hibbs' ongoing interrogation of the relationships between different forms of representation, playing off the two dimensional language of the diagramatic and the structural language of three-dimensional construction processes.

Anti Alias     2015

Can you describe your practice in a few words?
My work acts as a vehicle to examine the mechanics our perceptual experiences of space and its representation across two and three dimensions.....amongst other things.
What is your earliest memory of art?
Sitting at my father's technical drawing board, looking at his strange abstract drawings of circuit boards and the innards of radio ham sets, all black lines, letraset dots, rotring pens and parallel rulers....
Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?
Many - lamenate wood panelled cab offices, abandoned warehouses, bankrupt shops etc. Most recently at a domestic house for the Bread & Jam series of exhibitions curated by Emma Cousin in Brockley.
What does this sort of space bring to your work?
My work considers the exhibition space as an integral element of the work itself - the specific conditions of the given space create the starting point and are as important as what I bring to it. I aim to create an encounter where the relationships between the space and the works unfold providing an alternative way of experiencing space. Working with a domestic space or a shop provides a whole reft of other histories and associations to create a dialogue or collide with.
What is the future for art outside the gallery context?
Everything and nothing.... This is an important question in the context of the art ascene dominated and driven by market Validation where the reality for most is an absence of any commercial market for their work and an increasing lack of cheap or dead spaces in the city in which to create and oxygenate their practice by experimenting with exhibitions. Working outside of the commercial system is an empowering situation where you set the rules and is becoming the only potential outlet for many precisely at the point where market forces - gentrification, increasing rents, planning laws etc. are making this virtually impossible. Resist this shit, transform an unexpected space, show in your local hairdressers.....
What was your first experience of King's Cross?
The Scala.
What is the future for art?
The hairdressers and the coffee shop...
If you could meet one artist living or dead, who would that be and why?
Sun Ra - the most inspiring musician and artist of the 20th century born on Saturn and decended to planet earth.
What is your greatest weakness?
Buying records and making art.
What was the last exhibition you visited that unnerved you?
Here I am in total agreement with Lex Thomas - the Frieze Art Fair.
What place do aspects of traditional craft play in your work?
I make paintings with pinstriping tools. Pinstriping began as a way of embellishing the industrial metal panelling of vehicles such as steam locomotives and coaches. It then became synonymous with the sub-cultures of customising cars, hot rods, vintage motorcycles, truck and surfboards etc. It's basically the venacular form of the customisation culture.
Who have been your main influences over the years, both in historical and recent terms?
Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, the myriad forms of electronic music and of course my peers....
What projects do you have coming up in the future?
'Complicity' curated by Rosalind Davis at Collyer Bristow, where I will be making a site-specific mirror installation (-this show includes some of the artists exhibiting at the Geddes Gallery). A commission in Mexico city. The ever expanding project of being sensitive to my daydreams.

Interval Interference lll

Justin Hibbs (b.1971 Poole, UK) studied at Central Saint Martins, London (1991-94) and currently lives and works in London. He has exhibited his work in both solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally as well as curating a series of artist led exhibitions. Solo shows include: 'Alias_Re_Covered' at the Carroll/Fletcher Gallery, London; 'PARS/SITE' (2013) & 'Secondary Modern' (2010) at the Christinger De Mayo gallery, Zurich, Switzerland; 'Altneuland', Gallery Lucy Mackintosh, Switzerland (2007), 'Metroparadisiac' (2006) and 'I'll Wait for you' (2005) at the One in the Other Gallery, London, (2015); 'Distressed Geometry', Kunstrum, Baden, Switzerland, (2015); 'Weltenwurf', Kunsthaus Grenchen, Switzerland, (2014); 'Oh My Complex', (2012) Kunstverien Stuttgatr, Germany, 'Superstructures',(2013) Arronitz Arte, Mexico City, 'Temples To The Domestic', (2012) London; 'Polemically Small', (2012) Torrence Art Museum, California, 'Dawnbreakers' (2010), Hansard Gallery, Southampton. His curatorial projects include: 'Misfits' at Galerie DS Contemporary Art, Belgium (2010), 'Working Space l & ll' (2008) at the University of the Arts Gallery, London and the Lucy Mackentosh Gallery, Switzerland respectively and 'News From Nowhere' at the Lucy Mackentosh Gallery, (2005).




www.carrollfletcher.com
twitter: @Justinjhibbs



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JANE HAYES GREENWOOD   A Few Questions and Answers

www.janehayesgreenwood.co.uk

Jane Hayes Greenwood’s practice is concerned with the material and psychological histories of objects. She is interested in what kind of capacities objects might have, how their histories might define our relationship to them and how we measure ourselves against them.

In Hayes Greenwood’s recent work, ancient archaeological artifacts or digitally modelled objects are filtered through the contemporary lens of a distinctively restless making process. Here, the digital or ‘dug-up thing’ is remodelled and manipulated before being painted, cast or de-constructed.

Each of Hayes Greenwood’s works is clearly indebted to the specific properties of the unique archaeological, historical or psychological object, but they are also driven by a need for re-articulation, a radical re-framing within her own particular visual language. Ultimately, Hayes Greenwood’s distinctive works translate something discovered into something owned, coaxing what was once distant, hidden or unseen, unnervingly into the present.

Alongside her practice, Jane Hayes Greenwood is the Director of Block 336, a UK registered charity, artist-run project space and studio provider in Brixton, London. Block 336 hosts one of the largest, non-institutional and architecturally unique spaces in London. The organisation aims to promote engagement and critical discussion of contemporary art, with an emphasis on collaboration and cross-practice dialogue.

Big Bird   2016

Can you describe your practice in a few words?
I am interested in the nature of objects, as historical, material and psychological entities. The attachments we form with things and the impulses that drive us to collect and keep continue to fascinate me. My research is broad; currently I am looking at digitally modelled objects as well as ancient artefacts. I am very interested in measurement - how we attempt to understand the world around us through systems of quantification. Recently, I've been bringing together graphic imagery from old anthropometry charts, archaeological diagrams and children's colouring books and combining this in my paintings with a more carefully rendered approach to depicting certain elements. In these works I've been trying to interweave and enmesh the diagrammatic with the illusory on a painted surface, creating a visual clash, touching on ideas to do with the real, symbolic, digital and material.

What is your earliest memory of art?

Potato printing at nursery. It got a bit wild and I remember being told off for printing all over the other kids. The painting was escaping the confines of the paper - as it does most of the time with children!

Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?

Yes. I set up Block 336 which is a project space and studio provider in Brixton, with a number of other artists following my BA. The space is located in the basement of a 1970s Brutalist building and has a really interesting history. In the early days the building was used as a computer centre for Coutts Bank. The basement was then occupied by these huge machines which had to be cooled in order for them to keep running. We still have the remains of the thermostat and cooling system at the back of the space - lots of pipes and these lovely old fuse boxes. Block 336 will never be a white cube but we aim to work with the space and it's particularities so that it's history is present but never overbearing.

What does this sort of space bring to your work?

Non-white cube spaces have the potential to bring a lot to the work but if the space has too much presence the work can sometimes struggle. One needs to make a sensitive judgement on how to make an intervention and work with or against the space.

Does the environment in which you exhibit your work change how your work is perceived?

Definitely - even down to the area of the city where a space might be. It all feeds into the way the work is perceived and whether the frame of reference is one thing or another.

What is the future for art outside the gallery context?

Artists always find ways to make things happen and I'm sure this will continue. It is becoming trickier in London now that old dilapidated spaces that might once have been taken over by artists are being snapped up by property developers. This is a bit scary. I try to be optimistic about the way things will develop but with the current government it's hard not to be sceptical....

If you could meet one artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

I am a big fan of Cilda Mierles' work. I'd love to have a chat with him, he seems totally fascinating. But if we can dictate where the meetings could take place, I'd love to meet Jan Svankmajer in his house which is apparently like a big cabinet of curiosities - with lots of collections of the wierd and wonderful things from his animations. I love the exaggerated folly that is used in his films - lots of squelchy, slurpy sounds that are incredibly affective when combined with his uncanny, abject claymation.

What projects do you have coming up in the future?

In February I have some work in a group show with Yelmani Gallery [Brussels] who recently started representing me. I am about to start a residency at a space in Trinity Buoy Wharf that is run by the university of East London. I was invited by some former RCA students, Guy Oliver & Steven Gee who are also UEL alumni. There will be a collaborative duo Sarah Tynan and Tamsin Snow who are also taking part. This will culminate in an exhibition at the space in March. I also have some work in a group exhibition at Pipeline, an artist run space at Hotel Elephant. I'm very pleased to be making new work for the Catlin.

Unruly Neighbours  2015

Biography

Jane Hayes Greenwood recently completed an MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School. Represented by the Chabah Yelmani Gallery in Brussels, Belgium, since graduating she has been featured in the XL Catlin Art Guide 2016 and is currently taking part in a UEL residency at Trinity Bouy Wharf which will culminate in an exhibition in March 2016. Exhibitions in 2015 include a solo show titled Shovel-Screening at Art Bermondsey, gropup show titled Material Tension curated by Day & Gluckman at Collyer Bristow and selections for Creekside Open and Plymouth Contemporary Open.

Alongside her practice Jane Hayes Geenwood is co-founder and executive director of Block 336, an artist run project space, studio provider and UK registered charity in Brixton, South London. Block 336 has held 16 exhibitions since opening in March 2012. The organisation foregrounds emerging and unrepresented practices, working with artists within a supportive and critical context, free from the constraints of the commercial market. Jane is also a BA Fine Art tutor at City & Guilds of London Art School.



www.janehayesgreenwood.co.uk
twitter  @JaneHayesGr

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ROSALIND DAVIS    A Few Questions and Answers
www.rosalinddavis.co.uk

Rosalind Davis is an artist whose central concerns are transformation, space, process, material and surface and is informed by architecture. 

Davis’ paradoxical works imagine a multifaceted set of possibilities for both visualizing physical and psychological spaces.  Beginning with the rationalised objective geometries of architecture, multiple buildings, spaces and structures are collaged together and reconfigured. Through these processes Davis creates complex, disorienting, irrational, and subjective structures across multiple disciplines.

Highlighting the disparity between the imagined and real the work re-claims the failed ideals of modernist space by creating an intimate and personalised space of one’s own making. Interior and exterior space are both suggested and physicalised through a process of emergent materialisation which simultaneously navigates relationships between the personal and the systematic / architectural.

The imagery within the paintings and drawings are literally pinned down, sewn up and threaded together. Threads act as restraints; their tautness both connecting and dissecting physical and psychological boundaries into shattered geometric planes and shards. Thread traditionally refers to the domestic process of making, repair and creation whilst here it is employed with an uncharacteristically hard edged aesthetic sensibility that punctures the overtly male domain of architecture and modernism with a feminised gesture.

Recently Davis has been working on site specific installations; combining painting, thread, 3d form and drawing, utilizing light, form and shadow to interact with these mediums. This process connects and disconnecting physical and psychological boundaries, constructing multiple thresholds, spaces and dimensions in both 2 & 3d.  

Counter_Fit.  2016

Can you describe your practice in a few words?

It's about transforming spaces.....

What is your earliest memory of art?

Boobs everywhere, so to speak.....

What does this sort of space bring to your work?

What non-white cube spaces can offer is just a really fascinating regenerative way to make work.....

We need more non-white cube spaces please.

What is the future for art?

The big question....!

What projects do you have coming up in the future?

Busy, busy....

Biography

Rosalind Davis is an artist-curator and a graduate of The Royal College of Art (2005) and Chelsea College of Art (2003). Davis works across multiple disciplines, connecting and disconnecting physical and psychological boundaries, constructing multiple thresholds, spaces and dimensions in both 2 & 3d. Davis has exhibited nationally and internationally.  Davis has had several solo shows in London; 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, Transition Gallery, the Lion and Lamb Gallery, CoExist, The Roundhouse, Phoenix Brighton, ASC Gallery, APT Gallery, The Modern Language Experiment, Lubomirov Angus Hughes Gallery and she has been selected for The ING Discerning Eye and the Lynn Painters Stainers Prize.  Her work is held in a number of private collections and a public collection.

Davis has managed and developed two artist led arts organizations; Zeitgeist Arts Projects (ZAP) 2012-16 and Core Gallery 2009-11, based in London. Through these she co-directed and delivered an innovative and dynamic artist’s educational, membership and exhibition programme.  Davis has curated a number of exhibitions. In 2016 she is curating Complicity at Collyer Bristow Gallery, co-curating with Sasha Bowles and Evy Jokhova at Geddes Gallery and has co-curated with Annabel Tilley Standpoint Gallery (2015) and ZAP.  Davis lectures for universities, galleries and art organisations across the country including the Royal College of Art, the ICA, Camden Arts Centre. University of the Arts and ArtQuest and runs short courses in Social Media Marketing and Arts Management for UAL.

Davis has led art tours for the ICA ( London and Boston) , South London Art Map and the Whitechapel Gallery and contributed to BBC4’s Film ‘Tales of Winter.’ As a writer she has recently been commissioned by Octopus Books to co-write a book called: What they didn’t teach you at art school’ which will be internationally distributed.

www.rosalinddavis.co.uk

twitter  @rosalinddavis

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HELEN BERMINGHAM    A Few Questions and Answers
www.helenbermingham.weebly.com

Helen Bermingham’s practice explores ideas of memory, interruption and displacement. Using imagery found in old family photographs, figures are lifted from their original setting and isolated from their original context. The figures in her work are recreated; concealed, covered, fading in and out of memory. Through this appropriation, new narratives are created or suggested with a sense of the uncanny; familiar yet strange at the same time.

Can you describe your practice in a few words?

Displacement, interruption, memory, reinvention....blurring, fading, erasing...messy studio...

What is your earliest memory of art?

The Sacred Heart print that was probably in most Irish Catholic homes...!

Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?

Yes, I showed some work in a disused old building in Rye a few years ago. It had beautiful crumbling walls and was full of interesting and curious spaces. It gave the artists the opportunity to put work in a different context and create and explore new meanings.

What does this sort of space bring to your work?

In showing at Geddes, personally I hope my work can become almost a 'part' of the domestic space but in an uncanny manner; faded blurred paintings from old photos occupy the space where unknown family photos or paintings previously hung; paintings of domestic objects floating above spaces where potentially real objects owned by previous occupants sat....a kind of pictorial memento mori to an unknown past. I love the potential for 'theatricality' within a space like this; that the space can become a part of the work and vice versa; new narratives can emerge.

Does the environment in which you exhibit your work change how your work is perceived?

A gallery like Geddes can become an immersive experience; work becomes and creates part of a bigger narrative of the space in which it is set. I think the space can almost be less intimidating than the white cube space, it allows the visitor to explore and find art in new and interesting ways.

What is your greatest weakness?

Being too self-critical. And coffee.

What was the last exhibition you visited that unnerved you?

Tino Sehgal at Martin Gropis Bau in Berlin last summer. Two of the five performance works involved walking into dark rooms, not being able to see where you were going or who else might be in the room with you. When your eyes adjusted to the darkness you could see the vague silhouettes of the performers in there. You tried to figure out what narratives were happening in the space and sometimes wondered who were performers and who were visitors. Entering the unknown without the aid of one of your major senses created a sense of great vulnerability.

Who have been your main influences over the years, both in historical and recent terms?

I have a background in theatre and work by writers such as Beckett, McDonough and Enda Walsh are a constant influence on me. The poetry and imagery created by the work of Enda Walsh in particular is so beautiful, unsettling and powerful. If I could create paintings that had the same aura as his writing I'd die happy. Over the past few years I've been reading a lot of books by Irish writers exploring family / domestic life in Ireland now and in the past; the effects of growing up in Irish 'culture'. And recently there's been a lot of wonderful new writing emerging from Irish writers off the back of the recession. In terms of artists it's ever changing... Bacon, Schiele, Kollwitz, Richard Billingham, Lars Elling, Caravaggio, Goya, Jan Steen, Manet...to name a few.

What projects do you have coming up in the future?

I have an exhibition of Editions with Hundred Years Gallery showing at Simmons Contemporary soon. There is also a self-initiated drawing project which can be seen on Twitter and Instagram with the aim of creating a drawing everyday for the whole of this year in  an attempt to (ironically) counteract a busy working life and generate more imagery for painting.

Untitled   2015

Helen Bermingham (b. Ireland 1983) is a London based artist working in collage, painting, and drawing.  She completed a degree in History of Art and Theatre at Trinity College Dublin and a postgraduate at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

She has exhibited throughout the UK and Europe including with Lubomirov Angus-Hughes Gallery, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, Hundred Years Gallery and Universität der Künste Berlin. Her collage work was recently chosen to be part of the Editions programme at Hundred Years Gallery, London. She was part of the ALAS artists residency with Matt Roberts Arts and was longlisted for Anthology 2015 at Charlie Smith London. Her work is held in private collections in the UK and the USA.

www.helenbermingham.weebly.com

twitter  @HelBermingham

CAROLINE LAMBARD   A Few Questions and Answers
www.calcaro.com

In its current state, the‘ruins’ of 26 Caledonian Road may also be seen as palimpsest architecture 
(a palimpsest being writing material where the original script has been partially removed so it can be re-used for the new text). In the shop, with most of the personal possessions and shop produce of the previous owners now removed, what remains is the fabric of the rooms and a strong sense of presence, on to which are now being added many new and individual layers of interpretation.

Caroline's work in this context is a response to the sense of the shop - how it feels on entering the space, sensing the height, the width, and the natural pathway through the space. It explores how form develops within a given space and time, and the impact of that form and space it occupies. By physically connecting with the furthest recesses of the room, it brings them closer to the viewer, allowing a mental measurement of the space and structure, creating a connection and intimacy.

Echo Chamber  2015

Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?

I've shown work in both white cube and non-white cube spaces and like the contrast. The first generally acts as a frame, focusing on it, as an object. The second integrates the form and space, starting a dialogue and feedback process.

What does this sort of space bring to your work? And does the environment in which you exhibit your work change how your work is perceived?

Context is key. My work responds initially to the physical presence of a space, white cube or not, and develops through feedbeack between the growing form and the space it occupies. Here I will be developing work on the countertop in the shop environment, both of which have a strong sense of function, past and present. It will be interesting to discover if this sense of function - and the natural response of the customer in all of us - will have an impact on the work.

What is the future for art?

Hopefully as a widely accepted language, both multi-form and multi-disciplinary, with which to explore and communicate complex ideas. But that's quite a long discussion....!

Lambard trained as a designer but soon realized that my interest lay more in observing how the form was developing than in the final object. Lambard  now makes  large scale installations using everyday materials which allow both myself and the audience to experience processes of development of structure and form within a given space and time. It also reflects on the impact the developing form has on the space it occupies. Caroline has developed a construction process which uses lines in space, so three dimensional form to be viewed and experienced from both inside and out. The use of thin lines of thread mean the forms are able to span large spaces as well as developing areas of complexity and entity. The installations have led to many conversations with practitioners from other disciplines – such as science, architecture, economics and other artists - who see reflections of their own ideas in the structures. As a result of this experience, since 2011 Lambard has set up and has  run, along with other artists, the talks organization Ideas-matter-sphere which brings together speakers from many backgrounds to share and discuss ideas with equally multi-disciplinary audiences.

www.calcaro.com

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DAVID BEN WHITE   A Few Questions and Answers
www.davidbenwhite.com

“Simply to hang a painting on the wall and say that it’s art is dreadful. The whole network is important! When you say art, then everything possible belongs to it. In a gallery that is also the floor, the architecture, the colour of the walls.”[1]

Absorbed within the language and aspirations of modernist architecture, design and art, my work seeks to undermine its self-enclosed logic. Working within institutional/corporate public spaces that reflect the ongoing allure of modernist mythology, like an interior designer, I create environments that offer a counter-narrative, offering a new set of possibilities to their surroundings. Through the depiction and stylization of domestic environments, I introduce rogue ingredients within the modernist DNA structure and this accent on the domestic interior space, with its familiar tropes allows for a more personal space to emerge in contrast with the modernist logic in which we have become familiar. Recalling conversations with my late grandmother, Elizabeth Benjamin, a committed modernist architect, whose belief in the unifying force of modernist design was absolute, my work sets out to challenge some of her assumptions. Understanding that the logic of modernist formalism was its own didactic authority, the imposition of the personal can offer a new dialogue to emerge. By reducing the distance between the personally idiosyncratic and the institutionally constructed modes of commerce/display, I am interested in constructing a dialogue in which to lessen the distance between the public and the private and through that, the distance between the experience of the contemporary in life, art and design.

[1] Interview with Martin Kippenberger and Jutta Koether, Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective, ed, Ann Goldstein, MIT Press 2008.

Fabrication of Pleasure   2014

Have you shown your work on a non-white cube space before?

Many times. The most important project for me was Temples to the Domestic, sited within the Clifford Chance offices in Canary Wharf. It was in writing the proposal for the project that I found many of the central themes of my practice.

What does this sort of space bring to the work?

It helped me to formulate the question: How does our surrounding container affect us and how can we affect it? It brought the container into the equation in a very clear way.

Does the environment in which you exhibit your work change how the work is perceived?

Maybe, but what is central to my thinking is how does my work affect the environment in which it is perceived?

Fabrication of Pleasure   2014

David Ben White (b.1965, London) studied at Central St Martins (2003 – 2006) and Chelsea College of Art (2009-2011.) In 2011, White was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011 and exhibited at S1 Artspace ( Sheffield) and the ICA London. In 2012, White was the winner of the Clifford Chance/University of the Arts Sculpture Award for which he created the exhibition ‘Temples to the Domestic’ at the London offices of Clifford Chance. White has exhibited his work extensively in the UK as well as internationally. Recent solo shows include ‘Inside Outside’ (2015) with L’étrangère Gallery and ’Living Room’(2014) at Kerstin Engholm Gallery in Vienna. Previously he exhibited a number of solo shows with Studio 1.1 (2006-09.)

Collaborating and curating with Justin Hibbs, the two artists have worked together on many projects including ‘Temples to the Domestic,’ the Coleman Project Residency 2012, entitled ‘Lost Properties’ and in 2008, the exhibitions ‘Working Space 1 & 2’ at The Arts Gallery, London and Lucy Mackintosh Gallery, Lausanne. He is represented by L’étrangère gallery in London and Kerstin Engholm Gallery in Vienna.

Texts on David’s work can be found in Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011, New Contemporaries (1988) ltd, Double V. #5, 2010/2011- omnivore. Visarte.vaud. Academy Now 1, 2014, Damiani press and ‘Interiors, Design, Architecture, Culture Vol.4’ 2013, Temples to the Domestic interview with Victoria Walsh. He lives and works in London

www.davidbenwhite.com

twitter  @davidbenwhite

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SASHA BOWLES    A Few Questions and Answers
www.sashabowles.co.uk

Dealing with a metamorphosis of secondary imaging; I am currently working on a series entitled ‘Taking Liberties With The Masters’. They are both a homage and intervention where I playfully interact on bookplates and postcards of other artists’ paintings; then re-present them. Most recently I have been developing this thread to encompass my own photography of sculptures which I then extend by adding painted mediations culminating in new interpretations.

‘Rather than copying, the relation to the past has become increasingly defined, in broad terms, by the process of technical reproduction, and thus by appropriation.’ (John-Paul Stonard)

Many of the paintings I am familiar with or inspired by have come to me through secondary imaging, containing none of the fundamental qualities that encapsulate the originals – namely the hand of the artist. They lack a sense of scale, feel for paint application and contain no feeling of  craft  or  beauty of surface. Through creating new images from the printed reproductions; I am building an intimate relationship with these works, which also brings the viewer up close to consider them both as living paintings and objects. They are mischievously re-contextualised and continue the ongoing conversation between artists throughout art history; questioning both our relationship to art history and to the ownership of these images.

Furry Friend     2015

Can you describe your practice in a few words?

Intervention, homage, metamorphosis.

What is your earliest memory of art?

At home, my father has always collected art. He once bought a print from a man who came knocking on the door. It was by Chris Orr, called 'Vermeer's Budgie (Or Life in the 21st Century'. It hung in the hallway for years, it is quite rude and very funny. I would spend hours looking at it. I met Chris Orr many years later and he was delighted to hear where the print had ended up. It turned out that as a young artist, a friend of his had traipsed around from door to door selling his prints and every now and then he hears where another one has ended up. 

It now hangs in my hallway.

Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?

A couple of times. Once in a dis-used parking garage in Hoxton and also in two adjoining dilapidated houses in Notting Hill; part domestic; part scientific manufacturer and paper press. Oh and recently in a Crypt in Marylebone.

What does this sort of space bring to your work?

It re-contextualises it and becomes a part of the work.

Does the environment in which you exhibit your work change how your work is perceived?

Yes, because how you present your work is always a part of the work. You have to be aware of the environment as it can overwhelm the work, so it is important to use it to your advantage.

What is the future for art outside the gallery context?

I think that artists are very inventive and have been using non-white cube spaces for a long time now. Partly through necessity and partly because it is more suitable to the work they are making. In times of recession there are more chances to find unusual spaces that people are willing to let you use. In the past few weeks I have visited exhibitions in a disused shop, someone's home, a run-down opulent hotel and a crypt. I imagine that these sort of exhibitions will continue into the future. 

What was your first experience of King's Cross?

All night screenings of Andy Warhol films at the Scala Cinema as an undergraduate. I just found out recently that the Scala had a short lived life as a Primatarium, (to raise awareness about primates), with the stalls reconstructed to resemble a hillside forest and a great waterfall cascading down the full height of the auditorium. I'm sorry I missed that! Would have been amazing!

What is the future for art?

More and more cross fertilisation of ideas and artists collaborating.

If you could meet one artist living or dead, who would that be and why?
Bjork

What is your greatest weakness?

Being distracted in the studio: singing along to REALLY LOUD music badly at the top of my voice with my studio mate Christopher. 

(The Stray Cats are a particular favourite at the moment) Pretending to work, but really just having a really good time.

And distraction in general. There is just so must interesting stuff out there. I want to do it all.

What is the last exhibition you visited that unnerved you?

Carsten Nicolai at Brewer Street Car Park in collaboration with the Vinyl Factory. It extended the boundaries between audio and visual work and just messed with my mind.

What place do aspects of traditional craft play in your work?

Craftsmanship of the work is important, even if you want to de-construct the craft it is important to understand it. The more skilled you become in a medium the more you can 'play' within it. I have recently been learning bookbinding and each stage of 'crafting' the book involves patience and precision, both skills difficult for me to contain.

What projects do you have coming up in the future?

I'm exhibiting in a group show 'COMPLICITY, Artifice and Illusion' at Collyer Bristow (curated by Rosalind Davis)- opens 2nd March. Then I have a solo exhibition at 286 Gallery in Earl's Court, which opens 10th May.

Lace Head  2016

Biography

Sasha Bowles lives and works in London and completed her MA at Wimbledon College of Art in 2013. In the past few years she has been selected to exhibit in various opens including: The Crash Open & Photo and Print Open (Charlie Dutton), Discernible (Zeitgeist Arts), 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.  She co-curated and exhibited in ‘Bodies That Matter’ at ArtLacuna and co-produced The Bodies That Matter 3 publication. She also exhibited in a 4-man show ‘A Virtual Topography’, at Husk Gallery.

In 2015 Bowles has exhibited in group exhibitions at Standpoint Gallery, Husk Gallery, Day and Gluckman, The Crypt Gallery, Lubomirov Angus-Hughes and The Display Gallery.

In 2016 she organised & co-curated COUNTER_FITTERS- a site specific exhibition at the Geddes Gallery, King’s Cross. In March she will be exhibiting in Complicity, Artifice & Illusion at Collyer Bristow, curated by Rosalind Davis. In May this year she has a solo exhibition at 286 Gallery, London.

Bowles has work in private and public collections in Britain, Europe and America.

www.sashabowles.co.uk

twitter: SashaBowles1

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