PRESS RELEASE FOR ‘GETTIN’ THE HEART READY’
Gettin’ the Heart Ready is a group exhibition celebrating The Royal Standard’s coming of age. The 23 artist-strong retrospective will showcase artists that have been collaboratively nominated by our directors past and present, in recognition of their previous work for The Royal Standard and their career as a practitioner.
10 years will not only mark an impressive milestone for The Royal Standard, but will also see the organisation grow, transform and move into an exciting new era. Gettin’ the Heart Ready will give us the chance to look back on The Royal Standard’s formative younger years, to show appreciation to those that have contributed to a successful decade, and to look forward and consider the prospects, the potential and the future of The Royal Standard.
Artists: Jo Addison, Jonathan Baldock, David Blandy, Oliver Braid, Joe Crowdy, Jemma Egan, Craig Fisher, Matthew de Kersaint Giraudau, Michelle Hannah, Joe Hamilton, Littlewhitehead, Celia Hempton, Holly Hendry, James Mclardy, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Jake Laffoley, Liliane Lijn, Jess Flood Paddock, Mike Pratt, Low Profile, Ailie Rutherford, Sam Smith, Dave Sherry.
Artist Biographies:
Jo Addison
In Joe’s process-orientated studio practice, familiar objects and motifs are loosened from their bearings in everyday life. The relationship between objects and the body, and of objects to one another, is intrinsic to the haptic and spatial curiosity at the heart of her research. In work that is apparently casually made, the legacy of a paradoxically slow and often repetitive way of making is cautiously disclosed.
“While each object [on show] has a particular function and role, it is not immediately apparent to the viewer what its purpose might be. Like children, the objects have a sense of certainty, even when they appear ambiguous. Projecting a role, willing or forcing them to behave in a certain way, only prevents them from becoming”. (Addison, J)
Recent solo exhibitions include Stop Bugging Me – Frame 3, Tintype, London (2015); Join the World, Primary, Nottingham (2014) and Not Trees and People, Tintype, London (2013). Recent group exhibitions include good things come…, The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, Finite Project Altered When Open, David Dale, Glasgow; Alioli, Outpost (offsite project), Norwich (both 2015); Combines #1, MODEL, Liverpool (2014).
Jonathan Baldock
Jonathan’s work explores a contemporary ‘primitivism’, transforming between sculpture and prop, disparate cultural references and exquisite craftsmanship his work takes the form of painting, sculpture, installation and performance, all with a sense of the uncanny.
Sewn patches of felt replace painted background in Jonathan’s paintings and encase carved blocks stacked as monumental monolith or dispersed as prop. At once, creating a performative space and occupying a gallery space as emblematic abstract works. Porcelain, ceramic, straw and leather and further materials are employed within these frameworks as fragile marks and gestures, or as sculptures assemblage or groupings of implausible tools.
Viewed as an installation or encountered as individual sculptural parts, the viewer and the object and the space they simultaneously occupy is brought into question, as ritual act or theatre.
Selected recent solo exhibitions include That’s the way to do it!, The Grundy Blackpool; Notes from the Orifice, Vitrine Gallery, London; The Soft Machine, Chapter Gallery, Cardiff; Warm Bodies, Kunstvereniging Diepenheim; Hot Spots, The Apartment, Vancouver and Multiple points in this crude landscape, Primary, Nottingham.
David Blandy
David’s work reveals a personal quest for truth and authentic experience via the cultures that have shaped him. The music and legends of blues, soul, funk and hip-hop, haunt and guide his endeavours.
Current and forthcoming endeavors include: “Citadel: David Blandy”, Solo exhibition, The Exchange, Cornwall (2016), “Eva International 2016: Still (The) Barbarians”, Limerick City, Curated by Koyo Kouoh (2016), “Histories of a Vanishing Present: A Prologue” (2016), The Mistake Room, Curated by Cesar Garcia & Kris Kuramitsu, Los Angles, USA (2016), “Finding Fanon Gaiden: Delete”, Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, Praksis, Oslo, Norway (2016), “FF Gaiden: Delete”, Larry Achiampong & David Blandy”, The Gallery, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle (2016), “Emotional Supply Chains”, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2016), “Game Video / Art. A Survey”, part of the “XXI Triennale International Exhibition. 21st Century. Design after Design”, Contemporary Hall Gallery, Milan, Italy (2016), “Media Minerals”, Larry Achiampong & David Blandy as part of “Imitation of Life”, HOME, Manchester (2016), “Focus on the Funk- Journeys”, Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, Birkbeck Cinema & Serpentine Gallery (2016), “Wysing Polyphonic”, Wysing Arts Centre (2016), “Mount Florida Screenings” at Mount Florida, Glasgow (2016), “Random Acts”, Channel 4, UK (2016), “The Brief History of Knowledge”, Graphic novel with Daniel Locke & Adam Rutherford (working title) (2016)
Oliver Braid
Oliver (b.1984, Birmingham, UK) is an acquired taste living and working on Phew, an island off the coast of Glasgow. He has made solo presentations of his work including: I’ll Look Forward To It, Collective, Edinburgh (2011), My Five New Friends, The Royal Standard, Liverpool (2012), Snorlax Beanbag, Intermedia Gallery, CCA Glasgow (2013), Communal Dolphin Snouting, Transmission, Glasgow (2013), The one where we wonder what Friends did, WASPS Hanson Street, Glasgow (2015) and The Nude Ignity, Vane, Newcastle (2016). Oliver holds a BA Fine Art from Falmouth College of Arts and MFA from Glasgow School of Art.
For ‘Gettin’ the Heart Ready’ Oliver is conducting a new research project which focuses on ‘The New Mechanics’ as a theory of art as utility, introduced and popularised by Alistair Hudson, director of Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. During the summer of 2016 Oliver will hold a series of informal studio visits around the city, with people who have spent their lives being useful to others, and who ‘became artists’ after retiring from employment. Here, under the project title of ‘The Old Mechanics’, Oliver will contemplate key ideas such as; What is useful art? Of what value is it? Are judgments of use and value universal? If ‘The New Mechanics’ teaches from one perspective, what others options are out there? ‘The Old Mechanics’ premieres at Edinburgh Art Festival, before travelling to The Royal Standard, Liverpool and Plymouth Art Weekender.
Joe Crowdy
Joe (b. 1988, Cambridge) graduated from Chelsea College of Art in 2011, and is currently studying MA Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.
Recent writing projects have included the essay collection Graft, Seed and Rhizome: Architectural Promiscuity from the Garden to the City (2015), a contribution to The Architecture Lobby’s Asymmetric Labors: The Economy of Architecture in Theory and Practice (2016), and Brand New Indigestion, a site-writing of New Covent Garden Market (2016). Past shows include Reading Undergrowth for Tomma Rum, Sweden (2015); Domus MMXIV at Milcote House, London (2014); Pro-Repose (solo, 2014) for The Royal Standard’s Testing Bed programme; and Playground at Kinman Gallery, London (solo, 2013). This summer he will be a British Council research fellow, based at the 2016 Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Jemma Egan
Jemma (b. 1982, Liverpool) completed an MA in Sculpture at The Royal College of Art in 2015 and BA in Fine Art in Liverpool in 2005. Recent exhibitions include: ‘It means more to me than most people’, Zabludowicz Collection-Invites, London, 2016; ‘Skin Deep’, Seize Projects at STCFTHOTS, Leeds, 2016; ‘Is it Heavy or Is it Light?’, Assembly Point, London, 2016; ‘It was a dark and stormy night’, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and Two Queens, Leicester, 2015. Current and upcoming shows include: ‘New Contemporaries’, The Bluecoat, Liverpool and ICA, London; ‘dip’, CBS Gallery, Liverpool and ‘And so it was, and so it is’, Turf Projects, Croydon. Often approaching fast food as an archetypal product of our time, her practice explores the visual language and emotional investment associated with lifestyles of consumption.
Craig Fisher
Craig is an artist based in Nottingham. He gained his MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London (2000). Craig makes paintings, objects and sculptural installations using various fabrics and textile techniques to question representations of violence, disaster and macho stereotypes. Craig curates Mrs Rick’s Cupboard, a project that presents the work of contemporary artists in exhibitions in an unconventional gallery setting, a walk-in cupboard in his studio at Primary, Nottingham. Craig has exhibited his work nationally and internationally.
Recent exhibitions include, Standardised Versions (Rubble), Billboard Commission in collaboration with Helen Stratford (Public Artwork & Performance), Bloc Projects, Sheffield, Now For Tomorrow II, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham (2016), Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Gallery (2015-16) and Stand In, The Small Collections Room, Nottingham Contemporary (2015). He was commissioned by LOCWS International in partnership with the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea to exhibit a large-scale public artwork in Art across the City 2014.
Matthew de Kersaint Giraudau
Matthew creates sculptures, drawings, performances and films. His work addresses abject materials, negative affective states, and the ambiguities of language and objects. Mathew was an Associate of Open School East, 2013-2014. He runs The Bad Vibes Club, which is a research project into Morbid Ethics, runs Radio Anti with Ross Jardine, and collaborates with Ben Jeans Houghton as the ARKA group. He lives and works in London.
Michelle Hannah
Michelle works predominantly with installation, performance, intervention and sound. She curates Nitelights, a project which showcases work that deals with fashion, identity, sexuality, disparency in the moving image with just a hint of cosmic pessimism.
Her recent work and performances include Tulca Festival 2016, Ireland; Meadow Mill Studios Wasps, Dundee; The Royal Standard, Liverpool Biennial; Instigate Arts at HOME Manchester; ‘CU’ Performance at Hidden Door Festival Edinburgh; Gi 2016 ‘AS YOU WERE’ exhibition as Opera Autonoma at The Albus part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts and BLU_ANGL a solo exhibition, Intemedia, CCA Glasgow
Joe Hamilton
Joe (b. 1982 Tasmania) makes use of technology and found material to create intricate and complex compositions online, offline and in-between. His recent work questions our established notions of the natural environment within a society that is becoming increasingly networked.
Joe holds a BFA from the University of Tasmania and an MA from RMIT in Melbourne. His work has been shown to great extent internationally with recent group exhibitions at The Moving Museum Istanbul, The Austrian Film Museum, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and The New Museum in New York.
Littlewhitehead
Hailing from Glasgow, littlewhitehead take their inspiration from the city’s working class and post-industrial culture. Littlewhitehead is made up of artists Craig Little, born in 1980, Glasgow, and Blake Whitehead, born in 1985, Lanark.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Nothing Comes to Mind / Concordia / Enschede (2014), Inner Refuge / Linden Centre for Contemporary Art / Melbourne (2014), The Winds of Nowhere / Summerlee Museum / Glasgow (2013), Unfinished Business / Marine Contemporary / Los Angeles (2013), The Cyclic Gate / Sumarria Lunn / London (2013), Bad News, Marine Contemporary, Los Angeles (2012), Sumarria Lunn @ the London Art Fair, London (2012), Norther Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland (2010), The Gilt Hole Complex, Arcan Mellor, London (2010), Black Smoke Machine Gun Club, Royal Standard, Liverpool (2009)
Recent group exhibitions include: Fears / Melbourne Art Fair with Blackart Projects / Melbourne (2014), Start Art Fair with Helene Bailly Gallery / Saatchi Gallery / London (2014), When Suspicions Become the Norm / FABRIKA / Moscow (2014), Act & Application / Lawrie Shabibi / Dubai (2014), The Weak Sex / Kunstmuseum Bern / Bern (2013)
Easy Does It Part III / Supercollider / Blackpool (2013), Easy Does It Part II / Aid & Abet / Cambridge (2013), Be A Man / Sumarria Lunn Gallery / London (2013), Easy Does It Part I / David Dale Gallery / Glasgow (2013), Art Paris with Helene Bailly / Paris (2013), Supermarket 2013 / Kulturhuset / Stockholm (2013)
Celia Hempton
Celia was born in Stroud, UK in 1981. She lives and works in London. Forthcoming exhibitions include; Art Night, Curated by Kathy Noble, ICA Off-site, London, UK (July 2016), Celia Hempton in collaboration with Prem Sahib, Southard Reid, London, UK (Winter 2016), The Female Gaze, Part II: Women Look at Men, Cheim & Read, New York, USA and Frieze London 2016.
Selected recent solo exhibitions include The Magazine Sessions in collaboration with Fiorucci Art Trust, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, UK (16 May 2016), Celia Hempton, Michael Lett, Auckland, New Zealand (2016); Lupa,Galerie Sultana, Paris, France, FLY ASH, White Cubicle, The George & Dragon, London, UK (2015); Chat Random, Southard Reid, London, UK, Paintings on Wall and Canvas, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Rome, performance and presentation of work made in Stromboli as part of Forget Amnesia curated by Milovan Farronato and Haroon Mirza, Fiorucci Trust, Italy (2014); Cur, Southard Reid, London, UK and Vug, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany (2013).
Selected recent group exhibitions include The Painting Show, British Council Touring Exhibition, Electronic Superhighway 2016 – 1966 curated by Omar Kholeif, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brazil (2016); The Ultimate Vessel, Koppe Astner, Glasgow, UK, fig-2 25/50 in collaboration with Prem Sahib and Cecilia Bengolea, ICA Studio, London, UK, I’m here but you’ve gone, Fiorucci Art Trust, London, UK, The Chic and the Borderline, DRAF Istanbul, Grand Hotel de Londres, Istanbul, Turkey, La femme de trente ans, Galerie Art : Concept, Paris, France, Odradek, Instants Chavirés, Montreuil, France (2015); Tomorrow: London, South London Gallery, London, UK, Burning Down The House, Gwangju Biennale, Korea, Pontoon Lip with Katie Cuddon, Cell Project Space, London (2014), and Abstract Cabinet, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK (2013).
Holly Hendry
Holly (b.1990) lives and works in London. She graduated in 2016 with an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London having gained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2013.
Solo exhibitions include; Backwash, The Door, Rice & Toye, London, (2016), More and More, More is More, Bosse & Baum, London, (2015), VISITS, Curate Projects, London, (2015) and Hollow Bodies, Gallery North, Newcastle, (2014). Group exhibitions include; Fruits of the Lum, Tzuzjj, CBS Gallery, Liverpool (2016), A Bad Policeman is Always Busy, Newcastle University Gallery, Newcastle (2016), Cowley Manor Arts Award, Costswolds (2016), Slab Collective, Chesterfield House, London, (2015), Tru Luv, Turf Projects, Croydon, (2015), Best In Show, It’s All Tropical and Das Balloon, London, (2015), £1 FISH, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK, (2014) and Vernissage, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, UK, (2014), The March Project, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2014).
James Mclardy
James studied both Fine Art at the School of Art and Architecture at Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow. He has been the recipient of a creative development residency at Cove Park and a production and development Residency at The Danish National Art Workshops, Copenhagen.
Recent solo shows include: Outpost Gallery, Norwich, England; The Duchy, Glasgow, Scotland; The Royal Standard, Liverpool, England.
Recent group shows include: Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Scotland; High Cross House, Dartington, England; N/V_Projects, London, England; Haight Gallery, Calgary, Canada; SWG3, Glasgow, Scotland; ReMap, Athens, Greece; Ceri Hand, London, England; David Dale, Glasgow, Scotland; Liverpool Biennial, England; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland; Hunter Times Square Gallery, New York, USA; Overgaden, Copenhagen, Denmark; Glasgow International, Scotland.
Pil and Galia Kollectiv
Pil and Galia are London based artists, writers and curators working in collaboration. Their work addresses the legacy of modernism. It explores avant-garde discourses of the twentieth century in the context of a changing landscape of creative work and instrumentalised leisure. They are interested in the relationship between art and politics, and the roles irony and belief play in its current articulation often using choreographed movement and ritual as both an aesthetic and a thematic dimension, juxtaposing consumer rites and religious ceremonies to find the underlying convictions of a secular, post-ideological society.
Pil and Galia also run xero, kline & coma, an artist run project space and we teach fine art at the University of Reading and at the CASS School of Art.
Recent solo exhibitions include Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will, Pump House Gallery, London; Suck the Living Labour, Ort Gallery, Birmingham and Terminal Equilibrium, Trade Gallery, Nottingham.
Recent group exhibitions include Symphony of Hunger, A plus A Gallery and The School for Curatorial Studies, Venice; Office Space: The Modern Workplace Disrupted, YBCA, San Francisco; Kontratω: For It Had Turned to Gold in His Hand, metamatic: taf, Athens; The Ritual Box, La Rambleta, Valencia and Business As Usual, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Leeds.
Jake Laffoley
Jake is an artist born in Birmingham. His practice deals with labour and its relationship between art and work, varying from performance, video and installation. He often works under the identity Toilet Time Compression, a fictional company that increases productivity in the workplace. The company limits people’s time spent in the toilet to 2 minutes. T.T.C. believes this security measure and time standard will enhance the world’s economy and overall productivity.
Jake’s work highlights the invisible and often unnoticed forces that are placed on our day-to-day lives by large companies, he caricatures them often pushing them to dystopic and humorous conclusions.
Forthcoming: – ‘ART OF THE CEO’, Performance 30th June and solo exhibition, running until 24th July. Xero Kline & Coma, London.
Recent performances: ‘Predatory Elites’, Onirisme Collectif, Galerie Planète Rouge, Paris, (2016) curated by Mio Hanaoka. ‘Le Vin et Le Lait’ with Emma Brown, Crit-a-oke, Bluecoat, Liverpool (2016) curated by Tžužjj. ‘Toilet Time-Compression’, The Royal Standard: LIVE!, The Royal Standard Gallery, Liverpool (2015).
Recent group exhibitions: ‘T.T.C. Publicity 01′, Tate Liverpool, Tate Toilets & CBS gallery, curated by Tžužjj. Solo show: ‘Images Float Like Marshmallows’ – activation n°2, The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, New York (2014).
Liliane Lijn
Liliane has worked across media – kinetic sculpture, film, performance and collage – to explore language, mythology and the relationship between light and matter. In 2005, Liliane was ACE NASA, Leonardo Network artist in residence at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2013, Liliane was one of the six artists short-listed to produce a sculpture for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Public commissions include Solar Beacon, a solar installation in collaboration with astrophysicist, John Vallerga on the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge and Light Pyramid, a beacon for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Milton Keynes.
Jess Flood Paddock
Jess lives and works in London, where she is represented by Carl Freedman Gallery. Her recent projects include a writing residency for Ackerman Daly and she was a member of the judging panel for Bloomsberg New Contemporaries in 2015.
Her recent exhibitions include Nude, Carl Freedman Gallery, London; Chutzpah, The Schtip, Sheffield; Art Now: Jess Flood-Paddock, Tate Britain, London, X, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam, NL; Laying down and kissing the love in the mist, part 2, Kendall Koppe, Glasgow and In the belly of the whale ( act III), Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz
Recent group exhibitions include Äppärät, Ballroom Marfa, Texas, USA, curated by Tom Morton; Grand Magasin Deux, French Rivieria, London; Many a Slip, Marsden Woo, London; The Influence of Furniture on Love, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; Reclaimed- The Second Life of Sculpture, Glasgow International Festival, The Briggait, Glasgow and The 8 Artistic Principles, The Attic at One Thoresby Street, Nottingham
Mike Pratt
Mike’s work takes on a narrative approach using simple gestures and frank remarks. He is interested in the language of painting and the descriptive nature of forming images. The work references everyday, taking allegorical remarks from the mundane nature of the subject.
Mike is keen to express the physicality within painting, by combining unconventional materials and ready-mades together to form the abject nature of objectness. His practice is heavily led by material and process, often obscuring the subject and displaying a distance of uncertainty. Mike takes this as a viewpoint for the work to gain its own characteristics. Mike’s position whilst making is always to push and pull the outcomes, making spaces to rely on intuitive remarks. Ultimately the work stands as a portrait towards an emulated experience, describing a taste through a curiosity and a heavy-handed attitude.
LOW PROFILE
LOW PROFILE is a collaboration between artists Rachel Dobbs (IRL) and Hannah Jones (UK). They have been working in collaboration since 2003 and are based in Plymouth (UK).
LOW PROFILE’s practice spans a variety of performative interfaces with different audiences including small-scale live moments, gallery exhibitions, books, videos, durational task-led performances, sculpture, text works, sound works and large-scale participatory projects. Their work is informed by (and often made in response to) specific contexts and situations.
Ailie Rutherford
Ailie’s collaborative practice is grounded in the places she works and shaped by the people who actively engage in the process, creating multi-disciplinary works that explore the relationships between people, their natural, social and built environments. This process regularly involves inviting participants and audiences to collectively imagine our shared future. Ailie has recently been awarded Creative Scotland Open Project funding to develop The People’s Bank of Govanhill a social artwork in Govanhill, Glasgow.
Sam Smith
Sam lives and works in London. Recent solo and group projects include The Telfer Gallery / Glasgow International 2016; Centro de Artes Visas, Coimbra, Portugal; Gallery of Contemporary Art, E-WERK, Freiburg; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Australian Centre for Moving Image, Melbourne; Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam; MAGO, Norway; The Royal Standard, Liverpool; insitu, Berlin; and Jupiter Woods, London.
Dave Sherry
Dave lives and works in Glasgow. His recent exhibitions include Outpost, Norwich; a performance lecture at Newcastle University; CCA, Derry/Londonderry; a screening at The Rio cinema London; 37 pieces of Flair Newbridge Project, Newcastle; Motivational Deficit Crawford Gallery Cork; Journey into the unknown performance CCA Derry-Londonderry and Generation, the Kelvingrove Glasgow, the Traveling Gallery and Patricia Fleming Projects.
