Cul-De-Sac
September 2016 (The Studio, Llandudno)
Nathan Barlex
Laura Bygrave
Lydia Corry
Alex Crocker
Stephen Forge
Rebecca Gould
Iwan Lewis
Ross Taylor
Mary Vettise
The title of the exhibition is a fractured word suggesting both a communal place and fragmented vernaculars. The hyphen is the glue that links the words and the selection of artists is similarly fractured and stuck together with the gum of visual appendage. There is a violent gesture inherent, is this the repressed violence of the everyday?
Popular soap operas have often used the cul-de-sac as a location to put family life at the centre of a drama. The viewing public can identify with and then see themselves within it. Soaps such as Brookside, Neighbours, EastEnders have all used this setting to contain the sprawling mess of human emotions and catastrophes neatly within the context of a recognizable familiar place.
The cul-de-sac is also a dead end, a place to bring up your family safely and then die. Thoughts of death and rotting sprout to the surface, daily life has anesthetized us and we’re going nowhere. Life has stopped, become stagnant. Our perpetual search for ritual and magic has been replaced by habit and routine.
People inhabit the place, and the community that is created in these circumstances whether fictional or real, calls to mind the artistic community who perpetually search for a sense of belonging that never arrives.
Rebecca Gould, ‘Sonia’, Marine plywood, quilted fabrics and wadding, 147cm x 26cm x 250cm, 2016
Stephen Forge, ‘Untitled’, Cast and polished concrete, 9cm x 60cm x 200cm, 2014
Alex Crocker, ‘Bird’, Acrylic, Gouache and ink on jute, 42cm x 103cm, 2016
‘NewSun’, Oil on jute, 35 x 35cm, 2016
Ross Taylor, ‘Devil’s Pebbles’, Billboard poster, 120cm x 150cm, 2016
Laura Bygrave, ‘Lackland’, Glazed earthenware, 10.5cm x 4.5cm x 6cm, 2016
‘Spindler’, Glazed earthenware, 5cm x 16cm x 5.5cm, 2016
Alex Crocker,’NewSun’, Oil on jute, 35 x 35cm, 2016
Iwan Lewis, ‘Epitaph to an Abject Neighbour’, Watercolour and household paint on canvas, 63.5cm x 49.5cm, 2016
Alex Crocker, ‘Bird’, Acrylic, Gouache and ink on jute, 42cm x 103cm, 2016
Lydia Corry, ‘Mother is a House’, Text on acetate, Dimensions variable, 2016
Mary Vettise, ‘Miracle Man’, HD Video, 4 minutes 09 seconds continuously looped, 2016
Nathan Barlex, ‘Long Distance’, Acrylic and oil paint on canvas, 30.5cm x 40.5cm, 2016