Amanda Rae

Many of Amanda’s works are assemblages and she explores often using many materials. 'Nothing in the entire universe ever perishes, believe me, but things vary, and adopt a new form'. (Ovid, Metamorphoses) Amanda’s starting point may be a concept, thought or theme, through which she explores a process of bringing together form and material that invites thought from the viewer’s perspective related to that union.

The use of mannequins within assemblage has become an important aspect in Amanda’s work due to their unsettling representations of the human form, the disturbing sense of the unheimlich which they create. Through these sometimes surreal associations, Amanda explores the sense of liminality inherent in the world, the constant flux that is experienced on a daily basis. The French ethnologist, Arnold van Gennep described these modulations as “liminality, the transitional time or condition in which one, or a group, or a territory, or the season, is not what it was and not what it will become, but something in between, something marginal, vague, and flexible”. 

Opium Dreams

wirebird@hotmail.com 

http://sites.google.com/site/amandajrae/

Robyn Woolston

Smart Price (2012)

Field of Dreams (2011)

‘Shadow / Light’ (2011)  

Woolston intervenes within supply chains, re-appropriating product, meaning and metaphor. Located somewhere between Process and Povera, she presents a ‘rhizomatic’ assault on systems that place financial ‘profit’ above societal ‘value’ in a world defined by ‘finite’ resources. 

Her practice covers Installation, Film and Photography.


Previous clients have included Guys Hospital / London, HM Prison Service, Intel, ITV, London Print Studio, Maerz Arts Association / Linz, Mitsubishi, National Geographic Traveller, Psychologies Magazine, Tenderpixel Gallery / London and the Walker Art Gallery / Liverpool.

She is currently short-listed for the Liverpool Art Prize 2012:

http://liverpoolartprize.com/

More detailed information related to her practice can be found here:

http://robynwoolston.tumblr.com/

http://robynwoolston.com/

Tracie Shaylor

             “Contra Naturam, the defiance of nature…
for those who were not persuaded by Contra deum, 
the wrath of God.”

Himmelfard, Gertrude. (Petri dish politics 1999)

Historically Shaylor has dealt with research concerns that have evolved from interests in feminism and sexuality, patriarchal social systems and gender role reversal were underlying concepts explored in the series ‘Evolution and Atrophy.’

Contra naturam reflects the ongoing human embryo cloning research. The work is multi layered and open to interpretation by the viewer. The intended embryonic, amorphous shapes gradually become recognizable as human form. The series of seven refer to the biblical seven days of creation and consider the issue of genetic re-engineering furthermore the potential for an artificial cloned human race, raising questions of ethics and eugenics.

Tracie Shaylor’s practice shows an awareness of trajectories within modern art history and an understanding of where the individual’s practice can situate within that, whilst still finding a form of expression that is not imitative.

Contra Naturam

tracieshaylorart@yahoo.co.uk

www.tracieshaylor.co.uk 

Ian Irvine

Most of my work involves using images, phrases, and appropriated aspects of popular culture to make (mostly) prints and paintings which draw on traditions from inside the canon of 20^th century art, but also ‘encompass’ many other areas of interest – my upbringing in working-class Liverpool, an obsessive interest in and knowledge of Pop Music, Cinema, Design & Typography, Social History, Visual Iconography and a very large dose of Humour.

I am constantly trying to make work which may encompass the myriad of influences which I find swimming around in my head. Successful art is often a marriage of the medium and the idea, which is why I have proposed a screen-print called ‘Coloured People’. This is a good example of a work which encompasses many of the aspects I have been mentioning (music, films, politics,) and finds a visual equivalent of that idea in a medium which does it justice. The second piece is called ‘Walk away Rene’ and is inspired by the work of Rene Magritte, in the sense that it presents us with words and images which do not belong together, creating a sense of puzzlement in the viewer.

ian.sirvine58@tiscali.co.uk

Jason Simpson

Jason’s work is process driven through use of materials and a response to their environment in painting, sculpture and installation. His current body of work explores process, through intervention and the effects of environment and time on materials. Opposites take form through the organic, and inorganic presentation of the pieces evoking surfaces to be touched by the mind of the viewer. With no representation of scale in the pieces they express a subject matter that can be vast.

‘Untitled’

Medium – Plaster casts

Size – Variable

 

www.jasonsimpson.co.uk

jason@jasonsimpson.co.uk