Current exhibition | exhibitions 2008 | previous exhibitions
Crescent Arts and Yorkshire Coast College
‘The {Apothecary’s Unbelievable} Menagerie’
Friday 19th June – Sun 12th July
costume display and live performance
in Salisbury Arcade/Bar Street, Scarborough – all day every day
Crescent Arts and Yorkshire Coast College present an intriguing display of costume design by BA (Hons) Costume students modelled by Performing Arts students, showcasing their creative and dramatic talents. Live mannequins in exquisite hand-crafted costumes perform in Salisbury Arcade in Scarborough, turning window-dressing into a revelatory artform.
Working in partnership with Scarborough Borough Council’s Civic Pride ‘Windows to the Borough’, Crescent Arts promotes a new initiative aimed at improving the town centre by using empty shop premises for community based projects. Thanks go to Scarborough’s Urban Renaissance, Town Centre Management, and the owners of these premises who facilitated… 
Exhibition
John Creighton: New Paintings
Saturday 16th May – Sunday 28th June 2009
John Creighton is an accomplished abstract painter based in Ryedale whose work may be familiar to some of you. This exhibition focuses on recent paintings and drawings, retaining landscape references and incorporating figuration of a more ambiguous nature.
Film screening of ‘Into Abstraction’ with John Creighton – see Open Studios
Crescent Artspace will be open from Tuesdays to Saturdays between 11.00am and 5.00pm. Admission is free.
Anne Thalheim
Saturday 17th January – Saturday 21st February 2009
Anne Thalheim’s work has a powerful presence but resists easy interpretation. Nothing is quite what it seems. Objects which from afar resemble plants or creatures, turn out to be something quite different. The organic or natural is revealed as artifice, its beauty is disturbing and its attraction can repel.
“I make three dimensional objects that are often ambiguous, humorous, disturbing or repulsive. A restricted palette and selection of materials from the building trade give unity to this series of works.
Ready-made or found objects are used with a nod to Duchamp and the Surrealists. Figuration in the work emerges from the latent characteristics of these materials, which the artist instinctively draws out. A sensuality, eroticism even, is consciously and wittily contradicted by the choice of materials.
“Rubber from tractor inner tubes brings a further contradiction. A derivative of oil, the black gold, made into an object now made redundant, stubbornly polluting, rubber replaces expensive metal, whilst assemblages take precedent over the laborious and costly process of moulding and casting bronze.”
Language also plays a part in the work; allusive titles such as ‘Reticule’ or ‘Portable Billabong’ seem to mirror (rather than describe) the object. The poetic interplay between language and object compounds ambiguity and removes the possibility of literal interpretation of either.
Biographical note: Anne Thalheim was born in Quebec and studied at University Laval in Quebec. She currently lives and works in North Yorkshire. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at Hatton Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne and Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-le-Hole.
Saturday 8th November – Saturday 13th December 2008
Keith Farquhar
‘In Domestos Chaos’
Edinburgh based artist Keith Farquhar has built a significant reputation over the past 10 years with works such as V- Necks versus Roundnecks (2003), Atomised (2005) (ill) and Drunken Maria (2006) (ill). He has exhibited frequently in the UK and abroad including the 1st Athens Biennial (2007), at Anthony Reynolds Gallery in London and Galerie Neu in Berlin. We are pleased to host the first showing of his new work, ‘In Domestos Chaos’ at Crescent Artspace.
‘In Domestos Chaos’ brings together two bodies of current work. These comprise a number of specially designed cardboard cut-outs like the kind seen in cineplex foyers, except that here the artist isn't advertising a film or product and the cut-outs are free to remain as props who's only function is as artworks. These are set against a series of paintings on denim which are produced by applying bleach (domestos) to unstretched denim, thus allowing chance to determine the constellation of drips, stains, sprays and spills to form a backdrop of the heavens.
Keith’s work frequently takes the form of sculptural installation, employing a strict economy of means, whereby the individual physical elements act as visual props, retaining a sense of the temporary and portable. Keith has compared his practice to that of window dressing, in that he explores the means to create effective (yet momentary) illusion through methods more usually associated with commercial product display.
Crescent Artspace Launch at Woodend 04/10/2008
New Façades
04/10 – 14/10/2008
Crescent Arts with Yorkshire Coast College BA students in costume design working with Cath Whippey; Hull University Scarborough Campus, School of Arts and New Media; photography by Graham Mack.
Crescent Artspace opened with an intriguing installation of sound and vision, offering a contemporary insight into the artistic legacy of Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell. Woodend, the former home of the Sitwells, provided an impressive backdrop to this collaboration between Crescent Artspace, students and tutors from Yorkshire Coast College costume design department, and the sound department of Hull University Scarborough Campus. Through the combined talents of visual artists, designers, makers, performers, and audio artists, a fascinating and inspiring series of audio-visual works emerged, referencing the photography of Cecil Beaton, the poetry of Edith Sitwell, and the architecture of Woodend. Visitors could experience the poetry of Façade as never before, navigate our virtual artspace (now on our website) and encounter a reincarnation of Edith Sitwell.
Façade 04/10/2008
Façade! The Orchestra of St. Paul’s and Crescent Arts presented this seminal collaborative work combining the poetry of Edith Sitwell and music of William Walton. It was performed originally in 1922 at Carlyle Square in London, home of Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell. William Walton conducted whilst Edith Sitwell recited the texts from behind a curtain using the famous Sengerphone (a megaphone-like instrument) to amplify her voice. By all accounts, it was a powerful performance. Façade evolved over several performances before reaching the version that we know today. The event in Scarborough was a rare opportunity to experience a live performance of Façade. We were privileged to host William Sitwell as reciter along with Pippa Longworth, and the highly accomplished Orchestra of St. Paul’s conducted by Ben Palmer.
Sat 4th October 2pm – 5pm
Catherine Graham
Installation ‘Out of Place, Out of Time’
Crescent Artstudios Catherine Graham, an ex-studio holder at Crescent Arts, recently completed an MFA at Leeds University. This installation was timed to coincide with the opening of Crescent Artspace and our re-launch, allowing Catherine to revisit her former studio environment, bringing to bear experiences since leaving Scarborough and Crescent Arts. Catherine’s ability to confound expectations by the lateral juxtaposition of unlikely materials and objects demonstrates both humour and pathos ranging from the scatological to the biodegradable. Her work, which might at first sight appear to be subliminal and undemonstrative, has a tendency to creep up on you from behind a radiator or from where it lurks in some hidden corner. It’s never quite where it ought to belong, and thus performs its primary role as ‘intervention’.
Previous exhibitions
For information about previous exhibitions at Crescent Arts please see the archive pages.