HALLelujah!

HALLelujah! A group exhibition curated by Janie Nicoll

Opening Friday 17th April, 6pm– 9pm
212 West Princes Street, Woodlands, Glasgow G4 9DL, Scotland
Tel 0141 5757 9773
Featuring artwork by :

Alice Bradshaw, Halifax
Ellen Burroughs, Leeds
Hondartza Fraga, Sheffield
Anna Francis, Stoke on Trent
Alex Hetherington, Glasgow
Robert Hope, Keighley
Richard Higlett, Cardiff
Olivia Irvine, Edinburgh
Jean McEwan, Keighley
Milk, Two Sugars, Huddersfield
Janie Nicoll, Glasgow
Laurence Payot, Liverpool
Andrew Reynolds, Birmingham
Elizabeth Rowe, Birmingham
Catherine Weir, Glasgow
Rebecca Wilcox, Glasgow

With a performance event, Saturday 18th April at 4pm:
“Jonathan Monk Made Me Hardcore, with Jack Daniels and Ms Happiness Amah” by Alex Hetherington and “Email Scam Popsong” by Mikaela Skogsberg.
These performances form elements of “A Million Lies; Once and Only Revealed After Death (Triangle of Need)/Sarah Winchester Made Me Hardcore”, funded by Alt-W, New Media Scotland and developed at a Creative Lab, CCA, April 2009 (www.alt-w.com)

Exhibition will be open 2-6pm Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th April, and by appointment. All welcome.


For more details, images or information please contact Janie Nicoll, 0141 575 9773 or on 07971602270 or janienicoll@yahoo.co.uk.
HALLelujah! A group exhibition curated by Janie Nicoll

The exhibition “HALLelujah!” has come about partly as an open call for artworks but also as a result of connections made by Nicoll at various networking events and artists residencies in the last couple of years. She has attended NAN networking events in Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol, Newcastle and most recently in October “The Winner Takes It All” symposium in Liverpool during the Capital of Culture. Connections have also been made through other artists led initiatives such as Ayling and Conroy’s Shining Cliff Residency (My House Projects) and the Deviant Art Festival in Sweden. This exhibition exemplifies the Do-It-Yourself ethos intrinsic to these endeavors and actively brings together a selection of artists who are dynamically involved in grassroots artist-led initiatives and projects in a variety of locations nationally.

Held within the curators own flat resolutely out-with the white cube gallery space, the artworks on show explore and interrogate the notion of the domestic setting and the possibilities and limitations that this inevitably creates.

The exhibition aims to showcase the diversity of approaches of these artists across a range of media including Alice Bradshaw’s dysfunctional household objects, Ellen Burrough’s drawings of petty criminals, Elizabeth Rowe’s thought provoking collage works, and Anna Francis participatory assignments. Alex Hetherington has created a provocative LCD text and poster work, while a sound work by Robert Hope explores the more holistic nature of the domestic space. Hondartza Fraga uses the dolls’ house as an analogy for a darker domestic malaise, while video works by Richard Higlett, Jean McEwan, ‘Milk, Two Sugars’, Catherine Weir and Rebecca Wilcox work to engage the viewer in a variety of different ways, either semi-abstract, shocking, inane or surreally comical. Contemplative works in the shape of beautifully rendered paintings by Olivia Irvine, and the other worldly drawings of Andrew Reynolds contrast with the site specific works of Laurence Payot and Janie Nicoll.

In addition to the exhibition artworks there will be a one-off performance event where Mikaela Skogsbers (Fool For a Pretty Face) collaborates with artist Alex Hetherington in “Email Scam Pop Song” and “Jonathon Monk Made Me Hardcore, with Jack Daniels and Ms Happiness Amah” as part of Hetherington’s Alt-W commission and Creative Lab residency at CCA, Glasgow.

Nicoll sees her role as more of a chef than a curator, bringing together in one place a mixed assortment of surprising works deliberately sited within a domestic rather than a gallery setting. None of the work has been shown in Glasgow before and an interesting concoction is predicted…

For more details, images or information please contact Janie Nicoll, 0141 575 9773 or on 07971602270 or janienicoll@yahoo.co.uk.


Artists Information
Alice Bradshaw is one of the founders of ‘CONTENTS MAY VARY’, a Manchester based artists collective, and also a co-director of Temporary Art Space, Halifax. She works with a wide range of media and processes involving the manipulation of everyday objects and materials.
www.alicebradshaw.co.uk/
www.contentsmayvary.org/
www.temporaryartspace.co.uk/

Ellen Burroughs works drawings into paper and card with scalpel scratches and white ink marks, then polishes with wood dye to create a smooth print like finish. Peculiar and miserable grimacing faces appear labelled with their curious selection of petty crimes. The imaginary mug shots, reminiscent of the odd caricatures that illustrated the quack physiognomy theories of the 19th century, are a reminder of what it takes to commit a crime in a country overwhelmed with CCTV.


Hondartza Fraga works with video, photography and drawing. Her work researches the emotional dependency relation between person, object and image. Interested in tensions between different image-making systems, analogue and digital technologies and how they affect the way we understand images; her work seeks to create a space where to question our individual and collective notions of loss and displacement, representation and communication. Originally from Catalonia, she is now based in Sheffield having completed a MA Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University in 2007. She has exhibited nationally (Liverpool, London, Sheffield) and internationally (Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands) and has collaborated in several occasions with HAG (Host Artists Group).
www.hondartzafraga.com


Anna Francis examines private histories and narrative using forms of mapping, photography and action to investigate the city. Recent practice saw 2008 becoming The Year of Finding Spaces in the City for Art. The project examines the impact that art and cultural activity are having on our cities, and the problematic nature of finding adequate and appropriate research methodologies which can measure that impact. This has lead to the recent projects, What This City Really Needs, a public consultation which involves finding out what the people of a city feel about their environment, and the recent Official Tour Guide project, in which Francis becomes an ambassador for a city. Francis is interested in initiating projects that allow opportunities for others to participate, question and comment on their surroundings.
www.annafrancis.blogspot.com/
www.annafrancis.com

Alex Hetherington is a performance-based visual artist and writer. He is currently producing a performance work developed as a result of an Alt-W Award from New Media Scotland, which includes a workshop project with Franko B at Tramway, Glasgow and a residency at Creative Lab, CCA. Future presentations include I Am Curious Oranj, DCP, San Francisco, USA, Edinburgh International Festival 2009 and Edinburgh Art Festival 2009. Recent exhibitions and work include The Colony Room, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, Skank Bloc Bologna, Tart, San Francisco, Videoholica, Varna, Bulgaria, Fools in Print, Edinburgh and a year-long residency at Callendar House, Falkirk.

www.alexhetherington.com

Robert Hope is an artists based in Keighley, Yorkshire and graduated from Bradford College and Leeds Metroplitan University, He is one half of Popup Films.

www.myspace.com/popupfilms

Richard Higlett has exhibited nationally and internationally and is currently presenting a sound work through the International SoundLAB Project. Selected exhibitions include; Winner of the Oriel Davies Open, Newtown, Wales / Anima at Gallerie B-312 Montreal, Canada / Rotate at Contemporary Art Society, London and Flourish at the Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic. He is also a curator and co-founder of Mermaid and Monster, Librarian of ARC Artists Resource Cardiff and a nominator for Axis' Open Frequency Programme.

Higlett's work involves actions that on the surface could be viewed as acts of folly. Previously he has photographed planets with a low resolution digital camera, reducing huge masses into single pixels, recreated notice boards with the information rendered unreadable and sited a mirror surfaced signs deep in a wooded areas awaiting for discovery. He is increasing working in sound and moving image, looking at the moments before an idea exists, presenting this as a creative act, as the process of creative is embedded within the nature world on every level and nothing ever beginnings for its own sake.
www.mermaidandmonster.com
www.richardhiglett.com

Olivia Irvine graduated in Drawing and Painting, from Edinburgh College of Art BA Honours. She creates beautifully rendered paintings in oil or egg tempera, of figures, objects and interiors that are of a fantastical nature. She is interested in the depiction of space as well as surface qualities, and her works often have a theatrical feel to them.

www.axisweb.org/artist/oliviairvine

Jean McEwan is a West Yorkshire-based artist filmmaker and curator. Jean gained a First Class Honours degree in Fine art from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2005, and was awarded the Esmee Fairbarn Foundation Emerging Artist Bursary at South Square Gallery, Bradford in 2006. She was recently commissioned by B r a d f o r d C i t y o f F i l m to make a short film based in the city. Jean’s practice ranges from documentary to experimental film, to music video, to creating film for live performance. Her work has been shown in and at a wide range of exhibitions, screenings, and events nationally.

Jean also practices as a curator. With 'popup' films she produces and curates projects and events to showcase moving image, sound, performance and multi-media work by Bradford based artists and filmmakers - recent projects include STIR, Bradford's arts festival in 2007, and The Saltaire Arts Trail. She is now currently one of the curatorial team organising "Hatch", a new arts showcase event at Bradford Playhouse.

www.myspace.com/jeanmcewan
www.myspace.com/popupfilms
www.myspace.com/popupandtribeofone

‘Milk, Two Sugars’ is two people. They write, paint and draw, brew beer and make films and create galleries. They live, work and play in Yorkshire. One day, they might take this ‘art’ thing more seriously. Selling work, networking, applying for funding and being po-faced about their vision is a concern they leave for other people with plenty of time on their hands. They have fun, as they believe, “We are all flecks of dandruff on the shoulders of eternity”. Think on that and sleep well.

www.milktwosugars.org

Janie Nicoll is an artist based in Glasgow, she makes installation works often with mutiple repeated images and a low tech punk aesthetic. Alongside artists Alex Hetherington she has curated a number of video screenings, ‘The Consequence’ at Low Salt and Edinburgh Sculpture Worskhop, ‘High Rise Cinema’ at Callendar Park high Flats during Big In Falkirk 2008.

http://www.axisweb.org/artist/janienicoll
http://www.consequencescreening.org/

Laurence Payot is a French artist based in the North West of England who works with with local, national and international artist groups, galleries and cultural organisations, and Co-Directs The Royal Standard, Liverpool, where she also has a studio. She has exhibited in a number of successful group and solo exhibitions in England, Scotland, Wales and France, with a recent award from the Arts Council of England, and a residency in Libya with the British Council and Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art.

The main catalysts for her work are patterns found in everyday life. She asks the viewer to question patterns that have become mundane and almost invisible, by altering them slightly and turning them into something uncanny. Her work uses “chameleon techniques”, allowing her to create site-specific work that looks like it has always belonged there. “I don’t intend my work to stand out at a first glance, but when a person discovers it, what is revealed is unexpected and disturbing – a small shock or revelation that something has been altered”.

www.laurencepayot.com

Andrew Reynolds graduated in Fine Art from Staffordshire University in 2007, where he made videos, sculptures, paintings, essays and sounds. He currently lives in Birmingham and his recent practice has been mostly concerned with drawing, exploring the space between visceral, automatic drawing and a preconceived idea. Reynolds chooses the medium of drawing for it seems to him the most honest. Reynolds's work can best be described in one word 'congested'
www.myspace.com/spastiserendipitous


Elizabeth Rowe is originally from Leicester but currently lives and works in Birmingham. Previous group exhibitions include, SALE, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, 2009, ZOO art Fair, Eastside Projects, 2008 and Collage Party by Paul Butler at MOCA, Los Angeles, 2004. She recently had a solo exhibition, Tiny Details Grotesque Proportions, The New Art Gallery Walsall, 2008.and was interviewed for This is not a Circular, podcast by Ayling and Conroy, 2009.

www.elrowe.com

Rebecca Wilcox is originally from Manchester and studied at Glasgow School of Art and UDK Berlin, graduating in 2006 and is currently completing a 'Master of Research in Creative Practices'. She has been involved in the ‘Now, Now’ artists initiative and ‘As We Speak’ video Screenings, and has shown her own work in Beck’s Fusions at the Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Darkspace at the Royal Scottish Academy, and Terra Nova in conjunction with Map magazine, at GSA..

www.nownowprojects.wordpress.com/

Catherine Weir is a recent graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee, and is involved in the ‘Now, Now’ artists initiative and ‘As We Speak’ video Screenings. Catherine’s video work "Eles Não Sabem O Que Perderam" uses faux and real suicide footage as a comment on youtube

www.aswespeakglasgow.wordpress.com