Text for Andy Maughan

more at schediosunrehearsed.blogspot.com

Andrew Maughan

As garish as a pantomime dame, and as hapless as road kill, Andrew Maughan's new series of portraits depicting Bilderberg attendees confront us at the tenuous border between fascination and repulsion. His gaudy – verging on grotesque – pallet of colours, and fast, lacerating brush marks, build up paintings which are almost entirely plastic surface, subsuming (or denying) any suggestion of the subject's personality, humanity, or of an interiority to the work. This specularization, and negation of an interior life, serves a double purpose. On the one hand, Maughan utilizes the frenetic painterly gestures and synthetic colours to obscure the identity of the subjects as a simile for the abstracting, and alienating effects of the esoteric secrecy surrounding the Bilderberg meetings. Whilst on the other hand, he is underlining, with jovial cynicism, the complicity of contemporary art in the entirely material, and vacuous systems of commodity culture.

But hold on, Bilderberg? You may well ask. What is Bilderberg?...Surrounded by police tape, political opacity, and media blackout, Bilderberg is reportedly the most well-protected, unofficial, meeting of the world's elite. Whether a supreme cabal, a political conference, or a bombastic shindig (that the rest of us aren't invited to), what little is known about Bilderberg is that it is an annual get together of the most influential politicians, heads of state and directors of big business in a luxury hotel, beyond the public gaze and democratic accountability. Everything else we know are the morsels gleamed by concerned journalists such as The Guardian's Charlie Skelton, reporting from the periphery of the World's most influential party; from outside hotel lobbies, and secret bolt-holes, whilst pursued by shady goons and government security officers.
Invited to produce this series by Skelton, Maughan shares similar concerns in his practice. With impudent curiosity both men highlight the clandestine operations of social axioms and the ideological bankruptcy of pervasive systems of power and influence. With the deceptive playfulness of an itinerant Art school graduate, Maughan adopts the spontaneous, pseudo-macho gestures and raw, barely mixed colours of modernisms predecessors (such as De Kooning). But he deploys these with the slick, cynical virtuosity of Kippenberger to develop calculated paintings which are simultaneously instantaneous, and highly laboured, as indicated by the accumulated layers of texture and colour, the painted, and re-painted details. There is something jarring about these parallels however, and about the appropriation, the plundering of art history's corpse, which operates in Maughan's larger-than-life canvases... The distorted, liquescent faces of Prince Philip, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, hover like carnivorous monsters above backgrounds reminiscent of pre-school imitations of Rothko colour field paintings. Their flat, plastic, and gaudy appearance hints at the tacky reproductions of 'monumental' art works that can be found in gallery gift shops, and on the walls of living rooms and student's bedrooms as dead signs of cultural appreciation and intellectual prestige. This reference seems to underscore the contradictory, and seedy functions of the contemporary Art world, in which Art is now entirely bound up with the mechanics of consumer desires, and of material culture.

Just as the Heroes of Abstract Expressionism – whose work was intended to be variously reactionary, revolutionary, and spiritual – have their works sold at Christie's for millions of dollars to hang in the homes and collections of the rich, Art is now inevitably subjected to the changing fashions of the Art World, the Art Market, and the capitalist Zeitgeist. Painting has seen a revival in recent years after Saatchi's monumental Triumph of Painting (2005) whether this was a savvy reaction to changing trends, or an innovative move on Charles Saatchi's part , painting was firmly reestablished on the agenda of galleries, art publishing houses, and artists alike.

Andy Maughan's distorted, and fragmentary portraits endlessly obfuscate comfortable certainty. They require the viewer to reconstruct the subjects in their imaginations – with their scratched-out eyes, the grotesque mouths, the dribbles of paint – but this is an impossible task. Identity, and recognition, is never complete. It continually shades off beyond the frenetic marks, and beneath the macabre fleshy colours, in the same way as the subjects do; in their inaccessible, elitist echelons of power.

Iris Aspinall Priest

Exquisite Corpse

Exquisite Corpse

29th April - 9th May

Core Gallery

8-12 Creekside, Deptford, London, SE8 3DX


http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/dealers_galleries/Gallery/Core+Gallery/20092.html

'DNR', Vault Gallery

DNR

An Exhibition of new work by Rachael Allen and Iris Priest

The VAULT Gallery, Lancaster, UK
60-62 Church Street

April 9th - April 23rd

Preview 7pm Thursday April 8th

http://www.vaultgallery.org/

Brick by Brick, xsite Gallery, Newcastle

Brick by Brick: An exhibition of small-scale wall drawings by 25 artists.

25 artists have been invited to make a wall drawing.

All the wall drawings will occupy the same wall.

Each artist will be asked to pick a number at random from a selection of 1-25. That number will dictate which row of bricks on the wall they will work on.

There will be only one artist per row.

Each artist will then chose a specific brick on that row to work on.

Each artist must work within the space of a single brick.

Each artist must work directly onto or into the wall.

Each artist may work using any medium.

All works are to be completed by December 14th 2009.

All works are temporary.

Globe Gallery Plan Chest December 09

http://www.globegallery.org/eshot/14/

ARKA Analysis

In accompaniment to Ben Jeans Houghton's new art work ARKA, Field Work One, Iris has been contributing to an ongoing dialogue with Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau and Emma Cummins concerning the nature of dreams, their place in art, and critical discourse.

The online discussion is regularly updated and can be viewed at www.arkaanalysis.com

The Spaces Between

The Spaces Between

36 Lime Street Gallery and Studios,
Newcastle upon Tyne

Saturday 17th - Sunday 24thOctober

"...truth can neither be apprehended nor communicated...history is an art like all other sciences."
Cicely Wedgwood (1960), English Historian

The Spaces Between is a show of new, site-responsive drawing and paintings by the Newcastle based artist Iris Priest.

The work in the show seeks to establish a poetic archaeology of the space at 36 Lime Street, exploring its history and past incarnations, as recorded through the archives, newspaper stories and rumour.

By avoiding elevating or giving authority to any one of these sources, Priest attempts to distill a history which is at once factual, fantastical, personal and metaphorical. The work hints towards the presence of absence, and the presence of unknowable history.

NewcastleGateshead Art Fair

1st to the 4th October 2009 @ The Sage Gateshead

Fair open to the public 11.00 a.m - 18.00 p.m. Friday

11.00 a.m - 17.00 p.m. Saturday & Sunday

Iris will be exhibiting some of her work alongside 14 other emerging, unrepresented artists... Watch this space for more details or go to

http://www.ngartfair.com/

what iris has been doing...

Solo Exhibitions

2009

The impossibility of communication, 36 Lime Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (October 2009)
BLOOM, No.1 Woodbine, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (June 2009)
Dear Mr. Murdoch, The Art Works Galleries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (May 2009)

2008

Specula & Other Stories, Supercollider, Blackpool (January 2008)
Through the Looking Glass (and what we found there), Badger Badger Gallery, Carlisle (June 2008)


Group Exhibitions

2009

Futures, The Gallery, Willesden Green, London (July 2009)
Invitation, Hanger 51, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (July 2009)
The Secret Garden, The Art Works Galleries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (March 2009)
Roses are Red, Mushroom Works, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (February 2009)

2008

Lowther Arcade Winter Exhibition, Arcade Arts, Carlisle (December 2008)
Miniature Focus, The Art Works Galleries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (October 2008)
Northern Graduates 2008, Curwen & New Academy Gallery, London (August 2008)
Graduates ’08 Show, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick (July 2008)
On Wednesdays We Draw Monsters, The University of Cumbria, Carlisle (June 2008)
NY 123 241 – NY 396 560, The_Bank_Gallery, Carlisle (May 2008)
Out of the Woods, Holmewood Bothy, The Lake District (May 2008)

2007

Vault, The_Bank_Gallery, Carlisle (July 2007)
In the Middle of Nowhere, Solvik, Sweden (June 2007)
Replicating the Original, The Underworks, Carlisle (June 2007)
Untitled Performance, Dumfries Arts Festival, Dumfries (May 2007)
Loweswater Residency, Holmewater Bothy, Loweswater/The Lake District (May 2007)
2:43, The University of Cumbria, Carlisle (February 2007)


Awards

Miniature Focus Competition, The Art Works, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (January 2008)
Doodle Dare Competition, BALTIC, Gateshead (November 2008)
The Lambert & Gill Travel Award, Carlisle (June 2007)


Publications

Futures, Exhibition Catalogue, Creative Motive, London (July 2009)
Northern Graduates 08, Curwen & New Academy Gallery, London (August 2008)
On Wednesdays We Draw Monsters, Exhibition Catalogue, Carlisle (June 2008)
Back from the wilds, Blease, Stephen, News & Star, Carlisle (May 8th 2008)
Featured Artist, The Carlisle Crack, Carlisle (September 2007)
2:43, Exhibition Catalogue, The University of Cumbria, Carlisle (February 2007)

Interview with Iris Priest [iris] in Whohub

Interview with Iris Priest [iris] in Whohub

Shared via AddThis

No.1 Woodbine Private View, "BLOOM" and other works

The Allotment became for me a site, a microcosm, a lense, for examining a point of conflict between the civilizing impulses of humans and the otherness of untameable, unknowable forces of nature...

During the Residency I worked on a wall drawing (approximately 550cm X 220cm) which prompted the evolution of some of my personal iconography....

But it was also an exemplary opportunity for pushing new works, testing ideas, gleaming inspiration from the surroundings and generally having the freedom to play a little in a wonderful context...

BLOOM

The Allotment Residency began today....
















....(and teenagers are by far the worst kinds of people)

Dear Mr Murdoch

The Art Works Galleries

7 May - 1 June 2009

Stepeny Bank, Ouseburn, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2NP

Mon-Sat 10.00 - 17.00

http://www.theartworksgalleries.com/

"This exhibition showcases some recent work from the upcoming artist Iris Priest, recent winner of the Art Work's Miniature Focus Competition (January 2009) and BALTIC's Doodle Dare Competition (November 2008).

In this show Priest presents some pieces from her ongoing series of paintings Specula & Other Stories whose accidental compositions have been culled from magazines and images from the popular press. These miniature, acutely rendered images engage the viewer intimately in a peculiar, parrallel space where the nature of looking, seeing and knowing is brought into question.

"My work explores the disorientating phantasmagoria inherent in contemporary culture and the degredation of the real through the saturation of imagery in advertising and consumer culture, touching upon Baudrillards' definitions of the Hyperreal......The patterns and common tendencies which emerge through the series, therefore, reflect the ways in which these images are governed by culture and context and, ultimately, how our daily reality and perspective of the world is manipulated through the similar miniature interfaces of newspapers, magazines and television."

http://www.irispriest.co.uk/

26/50 Specula & Other Stories

26/50 Specula & Other Stories
01/03/09
Random Images
Gouache on Paper
14.5cm x 11.5cm

iam , quod iam , quod iam

Miniature Focus Awards
In March, Bird and Anenome or the Civilizing Impulse (right) was awarded 1st prize at the 8th Miniature Focus Competition in the art works galleries, Ouseburn. My sincerest thanks to everyone who came to see the show and expressly to the art works, all their staff & volunteers for composing, organising and hosting the exhibition.

Part of the award includes an exhibition of my recent work which will be on show from May (watch this space for more details and updates)...

www.theartworksgalleries.com




36 Lime Street

In October (2009) I will be exhibiting a solo show at 36 Lime Street Gallery. The work will include paintings from the ongoing series Specula & Other Stories amongst site responsive works which will explore, and cross-fertilize concerns within the paintings with, the diverse history and patina of the building.

Currently I am immersed in the Tyne and Wear archives digging through indexes, building control plans and trade directories...but if you have any stories of your own relating to the building at Lime Street (or know of anyone else who does) I would be very interested to hear them (iris_aspinall@hotmail.co.uk)

www.36limestreet.co.uk




Desperately Seeking a Studio...

Creative type (5"3, messy hair) seeks Studio (any size/age) for LTR/ fun, adventures in the unknown, painting, making and tea breaks. Looking forward to hearing from you! (iris_aspinall@hotmail.co.uk)

www.irispriest.co.uk