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End of AA2A residency exhibition

7 - 24 July

Special Viewing: Thursday 9 July, 5-7pm

On show will be work by artists Bernd Behr, Jenny Dunseath, Elizabeth McAlpine, Carrie Reichardt and Nicola Schauerman created during their AA2A residency at Camberwell College of Arts  in 2009.

Bernd Behr's work explores the performative nature of the built environment, how architecture is visually and ideologically constructed through its historical reception, particularly in relation to the fringes of 20th Century architectural modernisms. He will present work developed on the AA2A scheme at Camberwell College of Arts, based on research into Tropical Modernism and in response to the college building's own Peckham Road façade.

Jenny Dunseath will present a new body of work exploring the process of making in relation to intention versus process. Dunseath's work instinctively employs traditional methods of making to produce unsettling and at first seemingly blank objects. Messy and yet deliberate, irregularity that is predetermined rather than random, Dunseath creates an air of experimentation with works arriving at what seems like a temporary final form by virtue of a fragile concatenation. Architectural elements figure largely, but never conclusively so and aspects of playfulness and humour mean that things are never quite right.

Elizabeth McAlpine works mainly with time-based media and she describes her working practice as close to geology. She tracks the repetitions and gestures inherent in popular media, extracting pieces of found material from its archive, and repositions them in ways that reveal patterns and associations previously unconsidered. McAlpine is working on a series of works titled 'Fiction Map'; these pieces use text of landmarks and street names taken from American fiction and organise them to create a real geographical route. The project is ongoing and attempts to create a route from the East to the West coast of the USA.

Carrie Reichardt: 'I consider myself to be a craftivist. I believe that art is the most powerful tool we have to bring about social change. You got to fight for you right to be arty.' Reichardt is currently working on a series of ceramic spray cans - a time honoured symbol of resistance. Having spent the last 6 years investigating methods of transferring images onto ceramics, she has developed a technique of layering images, using a combination of homemade, vintage and digital ceramic decals (transfers). Instead of spraying the streets, Reichardt prefers to have her art on ceramic spray cans. By juxtaposing an eclectic range of imagery with simple words and sayings, she invites the audience to re-question and think again about how they view the world.

The constantly shifting surface of Nicola Schauerman's new video installation 'Mother' reveals deeper levels of organic activity evoking both celestial worlds and microscopic sea creatures, creating a mystical 'womb of visions'. Named for Echidna, the Greek God and 'mother of all monsters', this piece is the fifth interactive video work in the series Imagined Future Evolutions which the art group Genetic Moo have been developing since 2004. Their digital creatures combine elements of the human body in sea-life forms and are designed to be both beguiling and unsettling. Webcams and Flash software are used to create real time animations, which respond in a variety of life-like ways to the motion or sound of the audience. Thematically, the works raise issues of genetic mutation and modification, polymorphous perversity and the grotesque.

Saturday 18th July, time to be confirmed: Nicola Schauerman and Carrie Reichardt will be giving a presentation on her AA2A produced artwork 'Mother' at Camberwell, Wilson Road as part of the MA Summer Show.

Biography

Bernd Behr lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include High Desert Test Sites, California, Alexia Goethe Gallery, London and Chisenhale Gallery, London. Group exhibitions and screenings include Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Art in General, New York, and ICA, London.

Jenny Dunseath lives and works in London. She graduated in Fine Art Sculpture from the Royal Academy of Art (2002-2005). Exhibitions include 'Wandering Stars' Korea, and 'Open Frequency' selected by S. Feeke, Curator of Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. She was a Studio Assistant to Sir Anthony Caro (2005-2008) and is a Visiting Lecturer at various institutions including University of Creative Arts, Canterbury.

Carrie Reichardt was born in 1966 and graduated in Fine Art from Leeds Metropolitan University in 1991. Since 2000 collaborative work with Mr Spunky, including Tiki Love Truck and The Treatment Rooms, an ambitious mission to cover the entire outside walls of their home in mosaics and ceramic artefacts. Reichardt corresponds and collaborates with several death row inmates and political prisoners in the US. Having become personally involved with the horrors of the American penal system, her work shifted from the human body to the human condition. http://www.carriereichardt.co.uk/

Elizabeth McAlpine is based in London; she graduated in Fine Art and Critical Theory from Goldsmiths College and studied MFA Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. Recent solo exhibitions include Flatland at Laura Bartlett Gallery, London (2008), Imaginary Solutions at SPACEX in Exeter (2007). Group show include Engholm Engelhorn Gallery, Vienna, The Art Centre, Bangkok, Harbour Front Centre, Toronto and New Galerie de France, Paris. McAlpine is a co-fonder and director of PILOT, a live archive for artists and curators. http://www.pilotlondon.org/

Nicola Schauerman lives and works in London. She graduated with an MA in Electronic Arts from the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University in 2006. She is the founding member of the art group Genetic Moo, who have presented work at numerous British venues including the Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, the 291 Gallery, Area 10 and internationally including film festivals in Venice, Munich and New York. Since 2005, Schauerman has worked in collaboration with Genetic Moo member Tim Pickup producing interactive video installations which have been presented at a number of UK venues. One of the works Becoming Starfish was awarded The John Lansdown Award for Interactive Digital Art, 2nd prize, at Eurographics 2007. http://geneticmoo.wordpress.com/

The Artists Access to Art Colleges (AA2A) scheme is a national project from the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD) and is supported by the Arts Council of England. The scheme enables artists to use the facilities at the College and to work alongside students helping to increase their exposure to a diversity of practising artists. The scheme runs  from October to April each academic year.  http://www.aa2a.org/

Image: Mother. Video still, 2009 by Nicola Schauerman

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