Curated by Day + Gluckman
Collyer Bristow Gallery, 4 Bedford Row, London
26 May - 21 September 2011

He’s behind you, 2011, machine knitted yarn, metal coat-hanger, found wardrobe, 900 × 600 × 1640 mm

Untitled drawings, 2006 – 2011, ink on paper, 370 × 460 mm

An exhibition of iconic John French prints, from the V&A Archive, alongside highlights from the Museum and Study Collection at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, bespoke visualisations by FABRIC, work by WESSIELING, Carole Evans and new commissions by artists Alice Angus of Proboscis with Fee Doran (aka Mrs Jones) and Freddie Robins.

John French (1907-1966) created some of the most iconic photographic images in British fashion. Developing techniques that highlighted contrast, to work with the new mass media printing of images in newspapers, he secured fashion imagery a consistent place on the front page. In the early 1950s his jauntily posed models reflected the mood of buoyant confidence being promoted and spun by the British government. The 1951 Festival of Britain provided post-war Britain a conduit to re-secure its international standing through a celebration of new technologies, science and culture.

At the same time women, who had been essential to the war effort, were expected to return to the home and rebuild family life. 2011 marks 60 years since the Festival of Britain. Looking at the 1950’s as a starting point this exhibition considers the implications of those changing times, including the beginnings of feminism.  The Museum and Study Collection at Central St Martins holds printed fabrics and items that document the beginning of women becoming stakeholders and gaining creative freedom within the fashion and textile design worlds.

(Taken from www.dayandgluckman.co.uk)

Curated by Judith King
Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens, Northumberland
1 May–26 September 2010

Woodland Unhappy Families 2010, mixed media installation commissioned for Extraordinary Measures

Leading contemporary artists were commissioned to fill the grounds and rooms at Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens, a property in the care of English Heritage near Newcastle. The exhibition Extraordinary Measures explored and played with our concept of scale, taking visitors of all ages into an Alice in Wonderland world of dark enchantment.

Extraordinary Measures is the sixth in a series of contemporary art exhibitions to be staged at Belsay. Simon Thurley, Chief Executive at English Heritage, said: “Every few years, we offer Belsay up to the cream of contemporary artists, giving them the opportunity to use the estate as a blank canvas for their imagination. New art and great heritage should not exist in separate closed-off worlds. So next summer, within the ancient rooms and beautiful gardens of Belsay, visitors will discover a universe where the miniscule is made massive and huge surroundings hide tiny surprises”. (Taken from Press Release for Extraordinary Measures, 2010)

Exhibiting alongside: Mat Collishaw, Tessa Farmer, MGA (Jenny Gillatt and Tim Mosedale), Ron Mueck, Mariele Neudecker, Slinkachu and Ciaran Treanor

Installed at PM Gallery & House, London
2008
Antique mirror, mixed media

Last year my parents-in-law found a young, female woodpecker lying dead in an empty bedroom. It had pecked at it’s own reflection and at the wood veneer of the dressing table mirror, dying from exhaustion and hunger. Some years earlier a young woman had fallen from the roof terrace of the flat above ours, landing in front of our basement door. She died on impact.

The form of this piece is also a tribute to the Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter (1835 – 1918). Potter produced many taxidermy tableaux including the infamous “Kitten’s Wedding” and “Who Killed Cock Robin?” As a child my parents often took me to his museum, in Brighton, and then Arundel, East Sussex. His museum has had an enormous influence on me. It is one of my most powerful childhood memories. The museum was eventually bought by Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. In 2003 the entire contents of the museum were auctioned. I now own his two-headed lamb from 1887.

Research project funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Royal College of Art Development Fund (RCA).

The Perfect – Alex, 2007
machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn 

580 × 920 mm

The Perfect – Eddie, 2007

machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

450 × 240 mm


In the collection of Spring Studios, London

The Perfect – Billy
, 2007

machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

450 × 240 mm
In the collection of Spring Studios, London

The Perfect – Tilak, 
2007

machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

1400 × 1050 mm


The Perfect, 2007
machine knitted wool 

Dimensions variable 


Installed at KODE – kunstmuseene i Bergen, Norway

The Perfect Skins, 2007
machine knitted wool, metal rail
1800 × 800 × 100 mm

“It’s not perfect, but who cares?” Well I do. I enjoy imperfection in you and yours but not in me and mine. I am very attracted to the imperfections, failings, and roughness of the material world. I enjoy the evidence of human hands, the inevitable wear and repair of objects. I love the obviously hand-made. But I suffer from being a perfectionist.  

This body of work deals with the constant drive for perfection. It is made using technology that was developed to achieve perfection. Technology developed for mass production to make garment multiples that are exactly the same as each other: garments that do not require any hand finishing, garments whose manufacture does not produce any waste, garments whose production does not require the human touch. Garments that are, in fact, perfect.

I have produced my knitted multiples through the use of a Shima Seiki WholeGarment® machine (a computerised, automated, industrial V-bed flat machine, which is capable of knitting a three-dimensional seamless garment). These multiples take the form of life size, three-dimensional human bodies. I have combined them in a variety of different ways to create large-scale knitted sculptures and installations.
Perfectionism is associated with good craftsmanship, something to aspire to. I aim for perfection in all aspects of my life, my work and myself. It can be very debilitating and exhausting and it is of course, unachievable.

Photography: Damian Chapman, Douglas Atfield, Ben Coode-Adams

2007
Machine knitted yarn, cellophane, buttons

1300 × 560 mm

Installation around pillar in Wintry, Lounge/Monika Bobinska, London
2 November – 9 December 2007


Exhibiting alongside: Su Blackwell, Debbie Booth, Andrew Hladky, Sophie Horton, Adam King, Gavin Maughfling, Lucinda Oestreicher, Laure Prouvost, Greg Rook, Kate Street and Gillian Wylde