Urchin Eater

Private View 6 – 8.30pm, 11 November 2008
10 – 16 November 2008
22 – 23 November 2008

Sunbury House, 1 Andrews Street, London E8 4QL

“Why should I copy this out… this sea urchin, why should I try to imitate nature, I might just as well try to trace a perfect circle. What I have to do is utilize as best I can the ideas which objects suggest to me, illuminate them somewhat.” - Pablo Picasso

Urchin Eater consists of the work of five artists who though formally disparate all eschew formal representation, seeking instead to invoke the true make-up of experienced, and consumed, reality.

The work of Peter Fillingham, Maria Georgoula and Ian Whitfield incorporates the extensive use of the archivist and curatorial disciplines. Yet whilst these two professions have an aim of clear presentation at their heart, the artists have no such interest. Instead they use the disciplines to coerce the objects to a greater, conceptual, purpose. Fillingham’s installation combines four works by the artist that are still in progress. Each work carries personal recollections, and questions how one digests objects and invests into them personal narratives. Put together the artist is creating a library of personal memories. Georgoula creates sculptural collages of found or bought objects, objects copied from found objects and information garnered from the Internet. Again, when collated together, they form fantastical narratives that go far beyond the objects themselves. Whitfield’s paintings start with drawn, painted or photographic source images, taken from a substantial personal archive, and move through a sequence of intuitive painterly decisions that have little to do with description or perception. Each piece evidences an enclosed and progressive investigation, the surface taking on the poetics of the textual list.

With special thanks to Yinka Shonibare.
For further information please contact Dan Coopey via dancoopey@hotmail.com