Unnatural Histories

This year’s annual Bow Arts Trust exhibition, which opens to the public at East London’s The Nunnery Gallery on Friday 20th June 2008, has been selected by curator Myriam Blundell. The show, entitled ‘Unnatural Histories’, features the work of eighteen artists picked from amongst over one hundred members of the Bow Arts Trust, and will run for one month, closing on July 19th 2008.

The exhibition includes diverse elements, from video documentation and sculpture to formal painting and printing from the 18 artists based at the Bow Arts Trust.

Becky Huntand Gabriel Tejada have created large canvases depicting an unnatural habitat where man-made and natural environments coexist in a space punctuated by the alternation of violence and pacifism. Samuel Wood’s installations propose an altered landscape and interpretation of cultures and history manifested through an imagined repertoire of decorative objects and recomposed artefacts. Natuka Honrubia’s delightful and delicious selection of work borrows from every day life objects, goods and wares to reinvent the mundane and redefine the rules. Mandy Hudson, Alice Peillon and Robin Dixon’s works explore the subtleties and nuances lying beneath the overt appearance of objects and images. Kim Baker also explores the notion of cultural distortion in her Dark Garden Series. Ki June Park is also concerned with cultural identity and the way human behaviour is assessed within dissimilar cultural settings. Mick Bateman borrows a contemporary artefact from everyday life, a chandelier, which appears to be “filled” with human blood, so as to turn our attention to how frail and fragile human existence can be. Jill Townsley's Video explores how things that appear to be constant are in fact always changing. In Albert Potrony’s ‘happiness’ an unassuming array of brightly coloured Post It notes proposes an ambiguous world - full of innocence yet tinged with its imminent loss. Don Clarke’s work explores the dichotomy between the language of science and that of Art. G. Roland Biermann large scale Rho Prints suggest movement, pace and random encounters. Mark Maxwell deals with the superficiality and deceptiveness of appearances. Junghee Roh’s etched human figures hint at the transient character of our existence in a world shaped by the classic struggle for dominance between humans and nature. Erin Newell’s ‘A Map of the Ocean between My Sister & Me, where a museum-type display of jars and containers elevates the ephemeral to a state of permanence.Laura White’svideo entitled Where You Are deals also with the relationship we have cultivated with nature, and how we understand and relate to it.

Myriam Blundell summarises that, ‘Although, challenging in many aspects, curating Unnatural Histories has been a truly rewarding and enriching experience. As previously experienced by former Bow guest curators, one of the principal difficulties is defining the cut-off point in the selection process. Amongst 55 submissions, I have selected a group of 18 artists whose work I felt communicated and interacted well with each other, andwithin the context of a coherent theme. The show includes a large selection of mediums, ranging from painting to video to installations to sculptures. This, in my opinion, creates a real sense of synergy and dialogue between the works and highlights the creative diversity I witnessed at the Bow.’

Exhibition Catalogue Available.

Unnatural Histories
Kurator: Myriam Blundell

Künstler: Kim Baker, Mick Bateman, G. Roland Biermann, Don Clarke, Robin Dixon, Natuka Honrubia, Mandy Hudson, Becky Hunt, Mark Maxwell, Erin Newell, Ki June, Park, Alice Peillon, Albert Potrony, Junghee Roh, Gabriel Tejada, Jill Townsley, Laura White, Samuel Wood.