New Art Highlights
25 April - 1 May
New Art Highlights of the week includes: Duncan Whitley, Susan Cutts, Helen Dryden and Penny Hallas
Phoenix City, 2018 - 2021 by Duncan Whitley
Phoenix City 2021 is a moving-image work which combines documentary and speculative fiction to look at Coventry in the process of UK City of Culture. It was commissioned by Coventry Biennial for the third edition of Coventry Biennial: HYPER-POSSIBLE.
Phoenix City 2021 examines Coventry’s relationship to the image of the phoenix - stemming from Donald Gibson’s and Basil Spence’s use of the mythical bird as symbol to represent their respective town-planning and cathedral proposals for Coventry realised in the 1950’s – and the hypothesis that UK City of Culture is conceived in as the city’s next phoenix moment.
The work features an original soundtrack by Abul Mogard, with the collaboration of Jaguar Land Rover Band and Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir.
See Duncan's profile on Axisweb >
Hope, 2020 by Susan Cutts
Own handmade gampi paper, dyded.
See Susan's profile on Axisweb >
We R Phono LOVERZ, 2021 by Helen Dryden
Painting, acrylic on canvas.
See Helen's profile on Axisweb >
Revenants, 2009 - 2022 by Penny Hallas
There is an autobiographical aspect to Revenants, making use as it does of old work and new riffs on old themes, all carefully contained in repurposed antique and vintage frames. Traditionally, a frame closes off and anchors the work of art, reinforcing its status as a solid marketable object in the world. The ones I’ve used here, however, have had their original contents ripped from them, including family portraits, and replaced with my own totems, spirits and reimagined versions of the dead. The question for me is – what does that do to the work and the beings referred to, and what does that do to the frame?
See Penny's profile on Axisweb >