INTERVIEW: Chantelle Purcell speaks to Andrew Bryant, curator of The Eighteenth Emergency.

With The Eighteenth Emergency exhibition launching this week, get the inside scoop from curator Andrew Bryant, in conversation with Core Gallery Press Officer Chantelle Purcell.

Read the full interview here:

This is the first of a series of Core Gallery interviews where we invite our programmed curators and artists to discuss their involvement with the gallery space in full.  Watch this space for more discussions linked to our busy events programme of the next few months!

Deptford X Open Submission results announced!

Thank you to all entrants for Core Gallery's Open Submission exhibition for Deptford X.  The standard of works was extremely high and the judges greatly enjoyed the wide range of fantastic artworks submitted.  Core Gallery is delightful to announce the successful applicants:

Jonny Aldous
Eleanor Bowen
Tom Butler
Mr Clement
Robin Dixon
Louisa Durose
Marenka Gabeler
Alison Hand
Alyson Helyer
Anna-Maria Kardos
Simon Leahy Clark
Jin Han Lee
Marion Michell
Laura Moreton-Griffiths
Edd Pearman
Daisy Richardson
Liz West
James Wright

3 of these artists will subsequently be selected to show in an additional Core Gallery show in 2011.  To be announced at the Private View: 23 SEPTEMBER 6.30-8.30pm

The exhibition runs from 24 SEPTEMBER - 3 OCTOBER 2010, Mon - Weds by appointment, Thursday - Sunday 12-6pm

Core Gallery Artist Elizabeth Murton presents Can, an interactive installation representing Core Gallery in the Deptford X festival 2010.

Using over 1300 used cans as material, Can (2010) creates something spectacular out of the by-products of common life. Consisting of a circular architectural structure, from which lines of cans are suspended as threads, Can builds a wall of fabric out of an everyday object in multiple. By creating a cloth of round cans, Murton teases the viewer by highlighting the inherent three-dimensionality of woven fabric, in spite of its initial two-dimensional appearance. Can’s constructive nature is a key part of the work. By making construction visible, attention is placed on the notion of constituent parts. Cans, once discarded as useless, become the unexpected building blocks of our surroundings.

Can presents a multi-sensory environment that appeals to sound and touch, as well as sight; gaps between the cans allow light to filter and bounce off the metal, creating a shadow-play on the floor. People can enter Can to escape the outside world. Both the subtle sound of the cans’ chiming and the play of shadow on the floor conjure up a nightscape distinct from the busy streets and bright light of the surrounds. Can creates a separate calming space; when you emerge, the contrast jolts the viewer back to the here and now of daily life.

Can is representing Core Gallery for the Deptford X festival gallery plot space. Deptford X is an annual international arts festival, this year held from 23rd September to 3rd October.

For a full press release, please click here.

Pleasure Parlour Press Release Now Out

Full info about Core Gallery's summerfest of sensuality, featuring artists Kelda Hole, Peter Davis, Holly Revell and Enver Gürsev.

Download here.

[Holly Revell, Red Hoop, 2010]

Deptford X Update

Submissions have now closed for the Deptford X Open Competition. Thanks for all entries - we have received over 200 which we are delighted to pass onto our judges - Graham Crowley, Matt Roberts and Kate Jones - for the next stage of the process. Selected artists will be announced on the 17th August, so keep eyes peeled to the blog, website, fb and twitter to hear it first! It's looking to be a great show, and if it's not in your diary put it in there now!

PV: 23rd September
General: 24th September - 3rd October

The Pleasure Parlour

Join us at Core Gallery for an art festival celebrating the exotic, the erotic and sensuality with fabulous work from Enver Gürsev, Holly Revell, Kelda Hole and Peter Davis. Each artist has their own approach to exploring the physical form but an exploration it will be!

Private View 10th September: 6pm-late
11th-12th September: 12-6pm

Prepare to be turned on - Deptford has never been so sexy.

There will be live music, performers, dancers & DJs throughout Friday night and Saturday

Holly will be doing her interactive light photography - come and get light painted. It's an experience between photographer and subject which can be a pure or as erotic as you like!

Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero

Curated by Rachel Price

7 artists respond to the Greek myth of Sisyphus through sculpture and video, exploring notions of the absurd, futility and circularity whilst displaying an immersion in the process, be it material or conceptual.

In Greek mythology Sisyphus was the king who for his crimes was subjected to the ceaseless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain only to watch it fall down the other side, and to repeat this for all eternity. It is Sisyphus’ approach to his hopeless fate that rouses interest, the myth being frequently revisited by both visual artists and literary figures.

Nick Bailey’s work uses readily recognisable and archetypal objects as a launchpad to a new realm, one of temptation and disappointment. Using a language of familiarity which stretches to one of whimsical desire and self-restraint, Bailey’s work questions the act of spectatorship. Is it acceptable to engage with the work? At best, this still only amounts to physical contact with an object or objects and remains only a superficial disguise.

Alexander Bates is inspired by the human desire to create order out of disorder, undermining and rebelling against this compulsion. His work attempts to question the definition of something as a “work” of art, as well as questioning the object’s value.

Jim Bond is best known for his large scale kinetic sculptures and installations. Bond uses the human condition as a springboard for his mechanical works. Often reductive and subtly humorous these works highlight the circular nature of the everyday. The cold mechanical aesthetic of these works is frequently at odds with the very human content evoked.

Through his work Rodney Dee explores notions of ritualism and the connections held between physical action and transcendence. Whilst working predominately in video and basing works around the body, Dee looks to explore one’s ability to exceed boundaries, and move between different spaces. An interest in the perpetual nature of the Sisyphus legend comes to the fore in Dee’s artistic practice.

JooHee Hwang’s questioning of the idea of territory results from personal experience: of finding herself in unfamiliar surrounds. She explores a ‘subjectivity of space’ through her vast sculptural installations. Hwang’s interest in the Sisyphus myth lies in the notion of a world within a world: for Sisyphus, the mountain became a world within itself, a new reality.

Rachel Price's work is concerned with investigating the dynamic between our material and our conceptual worlds, often through the pairing of image and form. Price works on the assumption that our physical experience of the world helps inform our conceptual formation of it. As an independent curator Prices provides opportunities for artists to produce new works in response to challenging curatorial themes, questioning the context of artistic practice.

The exhibiting artists are amongst the freshest of the contemporary arts sphere in London and all have well-established careers in the art world, both in the UK and internationally. It is a pleasure to bring them together in Deptford, itself home to a burgeoning artistic community which it is Core Gallery’s intention to reveal.