Sat 15th Feb and Sun 16th Feb
14-15 Queen Street Scarborough
Open 12pm – 5pm
Admission is free
PREVIEW NIGHT FRIDAY 14TH FROM 8PM
REFRESHMENTS SERVED
As part of this year’s Coastival a group of artists studying at Edinburgh College of Art present a group exhibition of contemporary work in the empty auction house in Queen Street, transforming it
into “A Real Bobby Dazzler” that even David Dickinson would be proud of.
Current 3rd and 4th year students show installations, painting, drawing, sculpture, video, photography, print, glass and textiles.
More information about the show and the artists exhibiting can be found on http://arealbobbydazzler.wordpress.com/
Information about Fine Art and Design courses at Edinburgh College of Art can be found on The University of Edinburgh’s website: http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/
10A
New work by Steven Malorie Potter
Saturday 8th February – Saturday 15th March 2014
Thursdays – Saturdays
11.00am – 4.00pm
and by appointment.
Admission is free
Steven Malorie Potter’s new work, under the collective title of 10A, consciously follows two distinct strands. These are linked by the artist’s use of paper and paper- cut as the preferred means of production.
“There was something very straightforward about slicing into paper that appealed to me.”
MUSEUMS AT NIGHT 2014
DARK! An Evening of Film and Performance
Friday 16th May
7.00 – 10.00 pm
Admission is free to members of Crescent Arts.
Non-members: Future Shorts Festival Spring Programme 2014, £5/£3 concessions
A fantastic celebration of Museums at Night with a special performance-presentation by Jade Montserrat based around one of the first back superstars, Josephine Baker, and served up with a DARK dash of Daiquiris! It’s the last chance to see our exhibition ‘The Buried City’ and look out for the mystery musicians…
Don’t miss this one-off screening:
FUTURE SHORTS FESTIVAL SPRING SEASON 2014
TOOTY’S WEDDING
Dir: Frederic Casella, UK – 2011, 18:30 min, Drama/ Romantic Comedy
Peter has always been in love with the beautiful siren Tooty but he is married
to the anti-siren Alison who thinks she can talk to dogs. So when Tooty flirts
with Peter the night before her wedding, a desperate Peter decides they’re destined
to be together.
Official Selection, 2012 Sundance International Film Festival, Special Jury Mention,
Bermuda International Film Festival 2012, Grand Prize – Best Comedy,
Jury Prize – Best Short, Friars Comedy Club Film Festival 2011.
INTO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Dir: Anna Frances Ewert, UK – 2011, 15 min, Documentary
This film lovingly captures the wonder of childhood as kids explore and test the boundaries
of reality through play and imagination.
Golden Gate Award for Best Short Documentary – San Francisco International Film Festival 2011,
Helen A. Bequest Award – Edinburgh College of Art 2010.
THE CAPTAIN
Dir: Nash Edgerton, Australia – 2013, 6 min, Drama/ Comedy
An aeroplane pilot wakes up in the wreckage of a crash with a massive hangover and is
confronted with the consequences of his actions.
Participated in Flickerfest International Short Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival,
Florida Film Festival, Sarasota Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival,
Calgary Underground Film Festival.
SVAMP (FUNGUS)
Dir: Charlotta Miller Sweden – 2011, 8:20 min, Drama/ Dark Romantic Comedy
Katrin sits apathetically in her dumpy apartment after being left by her boyfriend
as an old lady whose husband just died is wreaking havoc outside. Touched by the
old lady’s strong emotions, Katrin decides to face her old boyfriend.
Participated in 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
THE BIG HOUSE
Dir: Musa Syeed Yemen – 2013, 04:40 min, Short Narrative
When a Yemeni boy finds a way into the empty mansion down the street, he lets himself
and his imagination run wild in the big house.
Participated in 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Los Angeles Film
Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival.
FEAR OF FLYING
Dir: Conor Finnegan Ireland – 2013, 09:08 min, Animation/ Comedy
Dougal is a small bird with a fear of flying. At night his dreams are plagued with a recurring
nightmare of falling towards earth and by day he walks wherever he needs to go rather than
face this fear. When a harsh winter rolls around, Dougal must head South, but how?
Best Animation Award- LA Shorts Festival 2012, Young Directors Forum Award- Cristal Festival 2012,
Audience Award – Glasgow Short Film Festival 2013, Audience Award – Animade 2013,
Best Animation – Provincetown International Film Fest.
JONAH
Dir: Kibwe Tavares, UK – 2012, 17:41 min, Drama/ 3D Animation
Zanzibarian beach boy Mbwana, hungry for the future, creates a myth that transforms
his small town into a tourist hot spot, but when the reality is far from his dreams he sets out
to destroy the town – or himself.
Participated in 2013 Sundance Film Festival, “Best Short Film” nominee for
The British Independent Film Awards (BIFAS) in 2013.
Made in partnership with Film4, BFI, Channel4, Shine Films.
The Buried City
The Sacred and The Mundane
Dawn Brooks Jade Montserrat Steven Potter
Susan Slann Susan Timmins Karen Thompson
with film and photography by
Webb-Ellis
Sat 12th April – Sat 17th May 2014
Thurs to Sat, 11.00 am – 4.00 pm
Admission is free
Most of us accumulate all sorts of bits and pieces – souvenirs to mark family occasions, holidays, friendships, special events, memorable experiences; postcards, photographs, gifts, books, notes, trinkets, letters and the like. These assorted remnants offer clues to our cultural background, circumstances, history and identity, reflecting our range of interests, activities, preferences, aspirations and things that happen to us by design or chance.
We tend to value and preserve some things more carefully or consciously than others, and our methods vary according to character, disposition and means influenced by the technology of the day. Some derive satisfaction from systematically editing and filing photographs or mementos in albums, or recording the minutiae of daily thoughts and experiences in diaries or blogs, perhaps sharing these with the world. At the opposite extreme, others give little thought to cataloging an ever-increasing conglomeration of stuff in their possession. Whatever our tendency, whether veering towards order or otherwise, it will reveal as much about us as the content itself. Personal taxonomy can, arguably, be more interesting than formal and professional methods adopted by those repositories dedicated to research, collection, conservation, classification, interpretation and display.
The postcard, bus ticket or scribbled note that falls out of a book, marking a forgotten pause in our reading, can revive powerful and vivid memories of an experience long since buried in our subconscious. Nobody else has access to these associations and, if we choose to reminisce and share our story then memory and association is translated into history and its interpretation. If personal possessions are imbued with associations, which reside uniquely in our memories, this gives rise to a fascination and poignancy in speculating on the origins, purpose and history of items encountered within formal museum contexts. Objects presented as such are, of course, removed from their original context. Their ability to function as intended no longer really operates. Interpretation through classification may be an attempt to redress the loss of context or function and to plug the gap where memory and association might occur.
This exhibition brings memory and association to the fore as an alternative way to reinterpret a small number of objects from Scarborough Museums Trust’s collection, selected by six artists and myself. Each person chose independently, with no predetermined notion of the range or type of items to be brought together. The resulting ‘collection’ is assembled and displayed through an approach reminiscent of the Surrealist technique, ‘the exquisite corpse’, rather than attempting to epitomise a museum collection.
A single work by each artist is included, but not placed adjacent to their selected object, to underline the aspect of visual association in curating the exhibition. We have commissioned film and photography by Webb-Ellis especially for this exhibition. Stuart Cameron, Director of Crescent Arts We are grateful to Scarborough Museums Trust for their assistance by allowing access to their collection, thereby enabling us to present this exhibition to coincide with Museums at Night 2014.
Habit Forming Behaviour
Sat 21st June – Sat 26th July 2014
Habit Forming Behavior, Photograph: Ben Selby, 2014
Susan Timmins, Recent work
Sat 21st June – Sat 26th July 2014
Thursdays – Saturdays 11.00 am – 4.00 pm
and by appointment
Admission is free
The exhibition Habit Forming Behaviour brings together several strands of work by Susan Timmins, which she has been investigating over the period of her residency at Crescent Arts.
The exhibition title lends itself particularly to one specific area of work that takes the form of serial projected images. These images immediately seem very familiar. They show domestic interiors, as photographed typically by estate agents for low-resolution digital distribution (with a view to selling properties on their books). The sheer volume and repetitive pace of images presented in slide-show form by the artist calls into question our usual response to such documentation. Where normally we might dismiss most, and instinctively select one or two for further ‘viewing’, there is no such possibility on offer here.
We cannot fail to make subjective comparisons between the interiors shown as we scrutinise the choice of décor, colour scheme, furniture design and arrangement, architectural ‘features’, fittings and so on. Questions of taste might elicit a range of involuntary, often judgemental, responses – noting similarities and differences between our own choices and those shown in this rather functional documentation.
As the images accumulate through the viewing, our subjective response translates into more distanced observation forming an inventory of sorts. Thus, the act of viewing a range of seemingly familiar and similar images, as presented by the artist, invites or implicates the viewer in something resembling an anthropological case study. The three-word exhibition title is suggestive of the artist’s concerns and approaches within her work. These can be characterised as repetition, process and intervention. The element of repetition may exist as activity, image or physical object and is contingent on process and/or intervention. All of these aspects are apparent in a further series of works under the title of ‘Absurd Multiple’. It’s as if the artist is teasing the viewer a little by presenting multiple versions of an object which seems recognisable and to which we can put a name. On closer inspection it eludes straightforward identification.
“Absurd Multiple began randomly, attending a workshop at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, learning the ‘Lost Wax’ process and creating a wax ‘motif’ that will always fail to fulfill its destined process”. Susan Timmins
‘Absurd Multiple’ exists – so far – as cast object, three-dimensional print and digital image. Each process offers the potential for infinite identical reproduction, yet it will be apparent that each object or image contains individual characteristics and subtle variations. The act of repetition in the production of the work mirrors the habits and routines of human behavior and endeavor. It hints at the absurdities of our individual traits, or innate cultural conditioning, that may be so much a part of habit that we cease to be aware or consider these to be unremarkable.
In conversation: Susan Timmins and Stuart Cameron
Thursday 3rd July at 7.00 pm.
Admission is free
Susan Timmins will be ‘in conversation’ with Crescent Arts’ Director, Stuart Cameron on Thursday 3rd July at 7pm. She will also be available for discussion with members of the public and school groups throughout that day. If you wish to bring a group of students on the 3rd July between 11.00 and 4.00 please advise us of your time of arrival. It may also be possible to arrange visits and discussion with the artist at other times during the exhibition.
Bookings and enquiries:
T: 01723 351461
info@crescentarts.co.uk
ANDY BLACK: GARDEN
An exhibition of recent drawings by Andy Black
27th September – 1st November 2014
Thursdays – Saturdays, 11.00 am – 4.00 pm
and by appointment.
Admission is free.
Andy Black’s drawings are intriguing and nothing is quite as straightforward as might first appear. Plant-like organisms seem disciplined by the geometry of topiary, rock-like outcrops stand monumentally erect, other motifs hint at architectural landmarks. Explore these ‘landscapes’ in his exhibition ‘Garden’ and drawing installation ‘Big Garden’ at Crescent Arts and Crescent Artspace, Queen Street this October.
Further information on the artist:
Andy Black’s drawings evoke distinct feelings of dislocation and timelessness, which serve to amplify an unsettling mood that permeates his work. The environment is drawn, depicted in sharp relief enhanced by the clarity and contrast of a strong single source of illumination. Long shadows seem characteristic of a northern autumn or winter evening when the sun is low and its light is intense. There is a sense of stillness – as when the wind drops in the early evening – and that time has stopped.
These drawings can be approached as landscapes. The compelling feelings of dislocation and unearthly atmosphere are anchored by the stillness, inviting closer examination. In the process, a tension starts to mount caused by the subtle intrusion of the unfamiliar, an increasing awareness of ambiguities, which confound the reading and derail any sense of familiarity and conventional navigation of the image as landscape. The configuration of elements, which inhabit and form the spaces mapped out in the drawings, become increasingly enigmatic and evade any attempt to give them rational coherence.
At the same time, the laws of gravity and pictorial representation seem to prevail with most elements resting firmly on a ground that, in the absence of any other, is the white paper on which they’re drawn. There is no sign of an horizon or any finite indication of scale in the drawing. It’s far from certain whether these are macrocosmic landscapes seen from an elevated viewpoint, aerial perspectives, or microcosmic worlds – in any case invisible to the naked eye. Heightened awareness of perspective, altitude and vantage point, the lack of horizon and clustering within elliptical boundaries, creates the feeling of peering through a lens.
The bringing together of several drawings reveals much more about the artist’s intentions and methodology. It becomes apparent that there is a repertoire, or more accurately a lexicon, of motifs upon which the artist draws and which recur and accumulate within the works. This is made explicit in the drawing ‘Index’, 2014, which catalogues these motifs and even assigns a number to each, 1-126.
It’s not unusual for an artist to work within a limited range of imagery, or to revisit the same subject matter repeatedly. Andy Black’s systematic approach to the construction of ‘landscapes’ bears some comparison to that of the Italian artist Georgio de Chirico, founder of the ‘scuola metafisica’ group of artists in the early 1900s. De Chirico’s paintings of metaphysical town squares are imbued with a similar atmosphere and populated by an assemblage of obscure objects, equivalent to Andy Black’s index of motifs, which intensify the sense of dislocation between past and present.
The motifs assembled in Andy Black’s work owe something to drawings of anthropomorphic cartoon or animation characters and ‘props’ that, despite enduring all kinds of tragi-comic batterings, are somehow indestructible. The artist’s lexicon is reminiscent of but far more ambiguous and enigmatic than recognisable cartoon fare, and the more whimsical, goofy characteristics are tempered by understatement in the drawing. The American artist Philip Guston is an influence, in particular his later post-abstract work. Guston drew extensively, as a means to interrogate ideas for paintings, with equivalent borrowings from the genres of contemporary cartoon and animation.
Andy Black’s ‘Index’ bears closer scrutiny. Nothing is quite as straightforward as might first appear.
It’s a curious assortment of items, difficult to distinguish clearly between the animate, inanimate, organic and purely geometric with so many hybrid variants in-between. Plant-like organisms seem disciplined by the geometry of topiary, rock-like outcrops stand monumentally erect, other items hint at architectural landmarks, primitive tools, fetishes or the accoutrements of ritual. The numbering in ‘Index’ lends it the spirit of crazy golf; a crater or a hole could equally be a solid seen in silhouette. Motifs recur, never in identical form, and some operate in pairs, small groups, variable clusters or unpredictable combinations. Neither indexical stratagem nor numerical ordering are designed to provide a dependable means of navigation. Instead they cross the threshold of poetic legend.
Andy Black is an artist based in Scarborough. His work has been exhibited widely in solo and groups shows including Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2013, ‘Fields and Gardens’ at Duckett and Jeffreys, 2012, ‘Forests’ at Ryedale Folk Museum, 2010, and ‘Real writers Residency’ at G39, Cardiff, 2007. Born in north Wales, Andy studied Fine Art at UWIC, Cardiff and subsequently at the Royal College of Art, 2000 – 2002. In 2010 he was a selector for East Coast Open at Scarborough Art Gallery and was long-listed for the Northern Art Prize in 2009. Andy currently lectures in Fine Art and Art History at Yorkshire Coast College.
