Monday 29 February 2016

THANK YOU!
A Massive thank-you to all of you that visited COUNTER_FITTERS last week.
We hope you enjoyed the exhibition.
We had over 300 visitors and amazing positive feedback.
Please do contact us if you would like to join our mailing list for any further exhibitions.
Click the names below to connect to artists web-sites.

Here are a few images from the Artist's Talk on Saturday evening.
Caroline Lambard kicks off the artist's talk
Evy Jokhova brings everyone outside to view her banner
Freddie Robins talking about her work


COUNTER_FITTERS was organised and co-curated by SASHA BOWLES, ROSALIND DAVIS & EVY JOKHOVA


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Friday 26 February 2016


WE ARE OPEN  12 -7PM    Artist Walk and Talk Saturday 27th February  5.30-6.30pm
A Few Photos

A massive thank you to everyone who came to the opening on Thursday, and to all who came on Friday, it has been amazing.
Last day today we are open from 12 - 7pm and there will be an
Artist's Walk and Talk from 5.30pm
All are welcome.

COUNTER_FITTERS    David Ben White     Rosalind Davis

Nick Kaplony




Amazing spaces and changes of atmosphere as you traverse the different spaces.
Alice Wilson  Sasha Bowles
Hermione Allsopp      Freddie Robins       David Ben White
Marion Michell     Alex March
Alex March









                                                                                    






Evy Jokhova      Jane Hayes Greenwood









This is just a small taste of the incredible works by  the COUNTER_FITTER artists  -----  And there is so much more, come down today to see this beautiful dilapidated building seeped in domestic history. Each artist's work has a poignant resonance with different aspects of this space and the surrounding area of King's Cross-enhancing/ interweaving/ subtly changing. A fleeting chance to engage with a piece of King's Cross history  - captured in time- resonating personal histories - balanced on the edge of change.



Hope to see you later.....We close at 7pm!!!!

.......and then we are gone.........................


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Monday 22 February 2016

CORNELIA MARLAND       Answers a few questions
GEDDES GALLERY MANAGER
www.corneliamarland.com

After studying Social Anthropology and Art History at SOAS Cornelia has spent the past five years working on various art projects with a focus on place, participation and community involvement. She co-ordinates and curates exhibitions and also runs a project involving collaborative mapmaking in public spaces across London. Cornelia has recently started managing Geddes Gallery, which will stay open as an alternative exhibition venue until March 2016.

Jim Geddes 
Can you tell me a little of the history of the Geddes Gallery?
The gallery space was the wonderful Italian deli, K C Continental, run by Leo Giordani, for 50 years until May 2015 when he retired. I would often shop at the deli and always loved popping in to pick up some pasta and Italian treats.
I was using an empty shop building on Caledonian Road for 'Co-ordinate', (a group show I organised based around mapping King's Cross), when I was told about hundreds of sculptures made by local artist Jim Geddes which had been stored in the basement of the deli since Geddes had died in 2009. I was completely mesmerised by the sculptures and spent the next two years cleaning and cataloguing them while also looking for a space in which to exhibit the collection. It felt impossible because no existing gallery was interested since he wasn't a well known artist and anywhere I found available to rent was ridiculously expensive. A local family who own the deli mentioned the space could possibly be used while it was empty awaiting a new tenant. It was perfect and we held the exhibition in the deli in May 2015. Due to the success of the show I have been able to run the space as an exhibition venue until it has to be renovated. It felt fitting to name the space after him.
Have you enjoyed the experience of running Geddes Gallery?
Yes! I have loved working with so many different groups and enjoyed seeing the space transform for each exhibition. However it hasn't come without its challenges, the maintenance of the old building is constant....my DIY skills have certainly improved!
Can you describe your practice in a few words?
My work involves working closely with others. I run spaces, curate shows, coordinate projects, run workshops including The Mapping Project which involves working in public spaces with local communities.
What is your earliest memory of art?
Both my parents are artists, so I grew up with art all around me. My mum was very influenced by Frida Kahlo and had posters and books of her paintings all around the house. I remember how they scared and intrigued me at the same time.
Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?
I love working in non-white cube spaces. I have organised shows in a few empty shops spaces and always found them to be the most exciting and engaging experiences. Walking into an old shop or house feels very different to walking into a white cube space, less intimidating, maybe less clinical. It often makes me engage with the work in a very different way.
What is the future for art outside the gallery context?
I think this is the future. Affordable spaces to show art are becoming harder and harder to find. It is interesting to see how inventive artists have to be, opening their homes up for exhibitions or using existing empty buildings. I hope this is something that will become easier to do.
What was your first experience of Kings Cross?
I rented my first flat in Kings Cross when I was 18. Even though the flat was dingy and small I loved the feeling like I was in the centre of London. I have always found the contrast between the frantic pace of Kings Cross and the strong sense of community really fascinating.
If you could meet one artist living or dead, who would it be and why?
I would have loved to have met the namesake of the gallery, Jim Geddes. I was obsessed with his sculptures the moment I saw them. They have a very human, slightly grotesque quality - I find it fascinating how they can be truthful, painful and at the same time very comical.
What is your greatest weakness?
Cheese, always cheese......
What projects do you have coming up in the future?
I have some exciting projects coming p with Actionspace, an organisation that is based at Cockpit Arts in Holborn and work with artists who have learning diabilities. We are getting ready for an exhibition at Geddes called 'Shop of Curiosity' opening 18th March. I am also working on the engagement programme for this year's Cally Festival, which takes place on Caledonian Road every year.

The Mapping Project   Holloway Road

www.corneliamarland.com
twitter: @CorneliaMarland



Education: Social Anthropology and Art History at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), 2011



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Sunday 21 February 2016

JUSTIN HIBBS    A Few Questions and Answers
www.carrollfletcher.com

Across his practice, Justin Hibbs picks apart the mechanics of spacial perception and representation, drawing upon social, political and aesthetic agendas encoded within architectural structures. In particular, much of his work is renegotiation of the visual language and ideological legacies of modernism, seeking to establish and question relationships between real and idealised notions of space. This enacted through a uniquely multi-disciplinary approach that incorporates painting, drawing, sculpture and architectural interventions.
Central to each of these disciplines is drawing. In Hibbs' earlier work, drawn interventions grow parasite-like from a 'host' image, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two that offers the potential for a re-imagination of existing forms. Once completed, a work's deconstruction often leads to a new form of production in an alternative format. Cyclical processes of production, re-invention and reproduction are at play. Multiple two and three-dimensional forms of representation and production form an evolutionary feedback loop that connects and interconnects various bodies of work through time.
More recently he has worked with site-specific installations and sculptures that engage directly with the specific conditions of the architectural space itself. Vinyl tape or linear wooden constructions are used as a drawing medium to translate ideas at life-scale directly onto walls, windows and physically into the space. These immersive architectural interventions allow the viewer to navigate the space and work, providing a stage set for an individual relational and perceptual response. They indicate Hibbs' ongoing interrogation of the relationships between different forms of representation, playing off the two dimensional language of the diagramatic and the structural language of three-dimensional construction processes.

Anti Alias     2015
Can you describe your practice in a few words?
My work acts as a vehicle to examine the mechanics our perceptual experiences of space and its representation across two and three dimensions.....amongst other things.
What is your earliest memory of art?
Sitting at my father's technical drawing board, looking at his strange abstract drawings of circuit boards and the innards of radio ham sets, all black lines, letraset dots, rotring pens and parallel rulers....
Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?
Many - lamenate wood panelled cab offices, abandoned warehouses, bankrupt shops etc. Most recently at a domestic house for the Bread & Jam series of exhibitions curated by Emma Cousin in Brockley.
What does this sort of space bring to your work?
My work considers the exhibition space as an integral element of the work itself - the specific conditions of the given space create the starting point and are as important as what I bring to it. I aim to create an encounter where the relationships between the space and the works unfold providing an alternative way of experiencing space. Working with a domestic space or a shop provides a whole reft of other histories and associations to create a dialogue or collide with.
What is the future for art outside the gallery context?
Everything and nothing.... This is an important question in the context of the art ascene dominated and driven by market Validation where the reality for most is an absence of any commercial market for their work and an increasing lack of cheap or dead spaces in the city in which to create and oxygenate their practice by experimenting with exhibitions. Working outside of the commercial system is an empowering situation where you set the rules and is becoming the only potential outlet for many precisely at the point where market forces - gentrification, increasing rents, planning laws etc. are making this virtually impossible. Resist this shit, transform an unexpected space, show in your local hairdressers.....
What was your first experience of King's Cross?
The Scala.
What is the future for art?
The hairdressers and the coffee shop...
If you could meet one artist living or dead, who would that be and why?
Sun Ra - the most inspiring musician and artist of the 20th century born on Saturn and decended to planet earth.
What is your greatest weakness?
Buying records and making art.
What was the last exhibition you visited that unnerved you?
Here I am in total agreement with Lex Thomas - the Frieze Art Fair.
What place do aspects of traditional craft play in your work?
I make paintings with pinstriping tools. Pinstriping began as a way of embellishing the industrial metal panelling of vehicles such as steam locomotives and coaches. It then became synonymous with the sub-cultures of customising cars, hot rods, vintage motorcycles, truck and surfboards etc. It's basically the venacular form of the customisation culture.
Who have been your main influences over the years, both in historical and recent terms?
Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, the myriad forms of electronic music and of course my peers....
What projects do you have coming up in the future?
'Complicity' curated by Rosalind Davis at Collyer Bristow, where I will be making a site-specific mirror installation (-this show includes some of the artists exhibiting at the Geddes Gallery). A commission in Mexico city. The ever expanding project of being sensitive to my daydreams.



Interval Interference lll


Justin Hibbs (b.1971 Poole, UK) studied at Central Saint Martins, London (1991-94) and currently lives and works in London. He has exhibited his work in both solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally as well as curating a series of artist led exhibitions. Solo shows include: 'Alias_Re_Covered' at the Carroll/Fletcher Gallery, London; 'PARS/SITE' (2013) & 'Secondary Modern' (2010) at the Christinger De Mayo gallery, Zurich, Switzerland; 'Altneuland', Gallery Lucy Mackintosh, Switzerland (2007), 'Metroparadisiac' (2006) and 'I'll Wait for you' (2005) at the One in the Other Gallery, London, (2015); 'Distressed Geometry', Kunstrum, Baden, Switzerland, (2015); 'Weltenwurf', Kunsthaus Grenchen, Switzerland, (2014); 'Oh My Complex', (2012) Kunstverien Stuttgatr, Germany, 'Superstructures',(2013) Arronitz Arte, Mexico City, 'Temples To The Domestic', (2012) London; 'Polemically Small', (2012) Torrence Art Museum, California, 'Dawnbreakers' (2010), Hansard Gallery, Southampton. His curatorial projects include: 'Misfits' at Galerie DS Contemporary Art, Belgium (2010), 'Working Space l & ll' (2008) at the University of the Arts Gallery, London and the Lucy Mackentosh Gallery, Switzerland respectively and 'News From Nowhere' at the Lucy Mackentosh Gallery, (2005).




www.carrollfletcher.com
twitter: @Justinjhibbs



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JANE HAYES GREENWOOD   A Few Questions and Answers

Jane Hayes Greenwood’s practice is concerned with the material and psychological histories of objects. She is interested in what kind of capacities objects might have, how their histories might define our relationship to them and how we measure ourselves against them.
In Hayes Greenwood’s recent work, ancient archaeological artifacts or digitally modelled objects are filtered through the contemporary lens of a distinctively restless making process. Here, the digital or ‘dug-up thing’ is remodelled and manipulated before being painted, cast or de-constructed.
Each of Hayes Greenwood’s works is clearly indebted to the specific properties of the unique archaeological, historical or psychological object, but they are also driven by a need for re-articulation, a radical re-framing within her own particular visual language. Ultimately, Hayes Greenwood’s distinctive works translate something discovered into something owned, coaxing what was once distant, hidden or unseen, unnervingly into the present.
Alongside her practice, Jane Hayes Greenwood is the Director of Block 336, a UK registered charity, artist-run project space and studio provider in Brixton, London. Block 336 hosts one of the largest, non-institutional and architecturally unique spaces in London. The organisation aims to promote engagement and critical discussion of contemporary art, with an emphasis on collaboration and cross-practice dialogue.

Big Bird   2016

Can you describe your practice in a few words?
I am interested in the nature of objects, as historical, material and psychological entities. The attachments we form with things and the impulses that drive us to collect and keep continue to fascinate me. My research is broad; currently I am looking at digitally modelled objects as well as ancient artefacts. I am very interested in measurement - how we attempt to understand the world around us through systems of quantification. Recently, I've been bringing together graphic imagery from old anthropometry charts, archaeological diagrams and children's colouring books and combining this in my paintings with a more carefully rendered approach to depicting certain elements. In these works I've been trying to interweave and enmesh the diagrammatic with the illusory on a painted surface, creating a visual clash, touching on ideas to do with the real, symbolic, digital and material.
What is your earliest memory of art?
Potato printing at nursery. It got a bit wild and I remember being told off for printing all over the other kids. The painting was escaping the confines of the paper - as it does most of the time with children!
Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?
Yes. I set up Block 336 which is a project space and studio provider in Brixton, with a number of other artists following my BA. The space is located in the basement of a 1970s Brutalist building and has a really interesting history. In the early days the building was used as a computer centre for Coutts Bank. The basement was then occupied by these huge machines which had to be cooled in order for them to keep running. We still have the remains of the thermostat and cooling system at the back of the space - lots of pipes and these lovely old fuse boxes. Block 336 will never be a white cube but we aim to work with the space and it's particularities so that it's history is present but never overbearing.
What does this sort of space bring to your work?
Non-white cube spaces have the potential to bring a lot to the work but if the space has too much presence the work can sometimes struggle. One needs to make a sensitive judgement on how to make an intervention and work with or against the space.
Does the environment in which you exhibit your work change how your work is perceived?
Definitely - even down to the area of the city where a space might be. It all feeds into the way the work is perceived and whether the frame of reference is one thing or another.
What is the future for art outside the gallery context?
Artists always find ways to make things happen and I'm sure this will continue. It is becoming trickier in London now that old dilapidated spaces that might once have been taken over by artists are being snapped up by property developers. This is a bit scary. I try to be optimistic about the way things will develop but with the current government it's hard not to be sceptical....
If you could meet one artist living or dead, who would it be and why?
I am a big fan of Cilda Mierles' work. I'd love to have a chat with him, he seems totally fascinating. But if we can dictate where the meetings could take place, I'd love to meet Jan Svankmajer in his house which is apparently like a big cabinet of curiosities - with lots of collections of the wierd and wonderful things from his animations. I love the exaggerated folly that is used in his films - lots of squelchy, slurpy sounds that are incredibly affective when combined with his uncanny, abject claymation.
What projects do you have coming up in the future?
In February I have some work in a group show with Yelmani Gallery [Brussels] who recently started representing me. I am about to start a residency at a space in Trinity Buoy Wharf that is run by the university of East London. I was invited by some former RCA students, Guy Oliver & Steven Gee who are also UEL alumni. There will be a collaborative duo Sarah Tynan and Tamsin Snow who are also taking part. This will culminate in an exhibition at the space in March. I also have some work in a group exhibition at Pipeline, an artist run space at Hotel Elephant. I'm very pleased to be making new work for the Catlin.

Unruly Neighbours  2015



Biography

Jane Hayes Greenwood recently completed an MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School. Represented by the Chabah Yelmani Gallery in Brussels, Belgium, since graduating she has been featured in the XL Catlin Art Guide 2016 and is currently taking part in a UEL residency at Trinity Bouy Wharf which will culminate in an exhibition in March 2016. Exhibitions in 2015 include a solo show titled Shovel-Screening at Art Bermondsey, gropup show titled Material Tension curated by Day & Gluckman at Collyer Bristow and selections for Creekside Open and Plymouth Contemporary Open.
Alongside her practice Jane Hayes Geenwood is co-founder and executive director of Block 336, an artist run project space, studio provider and UK registered charity in Brixton, South London. Block 336 has held 16 exhibitions since opening in March 2012. The organisation foregrounds emerging and unrepresented practices, working with artists within a supportive and critical context, free from the constraints of the commercial market. Jane is also a BA Fine Art tutor at City & Guilds of London Art School.



www.janehayesgreenwood.co.uk
twitter  @JaneHayesGr




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Saturday 20 February 2016

ROSALIND DAVIS    A Few Questions and Answers
www.rosalinddavis.co.uk

Rosalind Davis is an artist whose central concerns are transformation, space, process, material and surface and is informed by architecture. 
Davis’ paradoxical works imagine a multifaceted set of possibilities for both visualizing physical and psychological spaces.  Beginning with the rationalised objective geometries of architecture, multiple buildings, spaces and structures are collaged together and reconfigured. Through these processes Davis creates complex, disorienting, irrational, and subjective structures across multiple disciplines.

Highlighting the disparity between the imagined and real the work re-claims the failed ideals of modernist space by creating an intimate and personalised space of one’s own making. Interior and exterior space are both suggested and physicalised through a process of emergent materialisation which simultaneously navigates relationships between the personal and the systematic / architectural.

The imagery within the paintings and drawings are literally pinned down, sewn up and threaded together. Threads act as restraints; their tautness both connecting and dissecting physical and psychological boundaries into shattered geometric planes and shards. Thread traditionally refers to the domestic process of making, repair and creation whilst here it is employed with an uncharacteristically hard edged aesthetic sensibility that punctures the overtly male domain of architecture and modernism with a feminised gesture.

Recently Davis has been working on site specific installations; combining painting, thread, 3d form and drawing, utilizing light, form and shadow to interact with these mediums. This process connects and disconnecting physical and psychological boundaries, constructing multiple thresholds, spaces and dimensions in both 2 & 3d.  

Counter_Fit.  2016
Can you describe your practice in a few words?
It's about transforming spaces.....

What is your earliest memory of art?
Boobs everywhere, so to speak.....

What does this sort of space bring to your work?
What non-white cube spaces can offer is just a really fascinating regenerative way to make work.....
We need more non-white cube spaces please.

What is the future for art?
The big question....!

What projects do you have coming up in the future?
Busy, busy....
Biography
Rosalind Davis is an artist-curator and a graduate of The Royal College of Art (2005) and Chelsea College of Art (2003). Davis works across multiple disciplines, connecting and disconnecting physical and psychological boundaries, constructing multiple thresholds, spaces and dimensions in both 2 & 3d. Davis has exhibited nationally and internationally.  Davis has had several solo shows in London; the Bruce Castle Museum (2013), John Jones Project Space, Julian Hartnoll Gallery (2009) The Residence Gallery (2007) and The Stephen Lawrence Centre. Selected group exhibitions have been at the Courtauld Institute, Transition Gallery, the Lion and Lamb Gallery, CoExist, The Roundhouse, Phoenix Brighton, ASC Gallery, APT Gallery, The Modern Language Experiment, Lubomirov Angus Hughes Gallery and she has been selected for The ING Discerning Eye and the Lynn Painters Stainers Prize.  Her work is held in a number of private collections and a public collection.
Davis has managed and developed two artist led arts organizations; Zeitgeist Arts Projects (ZAP) 2012-16 and Core Gallery 2009-11, based in London. Through these she co-directed and delivered an innovative and dynamic artist’s educational, membership and exhibition programme.  Davis has curated a number of exhibitions. In 2016 she is curating Complicity at Collyer Bristow Gallery, co-curating with Sasha Bowles and Evy Jokhova at Geddes Gallery and has co-curated with Annabel Tilley Standpoint Gallery (2015) and ZAP.  Davis lectures for universities, galleries and art organisations across the country including the Royal College of Art, the ICA, Camden Arts Centre. University of the Arts and ArtQuest and runs short courses in Social Media Marketing and Arts Management for UAL.
Davis has led art tours for the ICA ( London and Boston) , South London Art Map and the Whitechapel Gallery and contributed to BBC4’s Film ‘Tales of Winter.’ As a writer she has recently been commissioned by Octopus Books to co-write a book called: What they didn’t teach you at art school’ which will be internationally distributed.

twitter  @rosalinddavis





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Friday 19 February 2016

HELEN BERMINGHAM    A Few Questions and Answers
www.helenbermingham.weebly.com

Helen Bermingham’s practice explores ideas of memory, interruption and displacement. Using imagery found in old family photographs, figures are lifted from their original setting and isolated from their original context. The figures in her work are recreated; concealed, covered, fading in and out of memory. Through this appropriation, new narratives are created or suggested with a sense of the uncanny; familiar yet strange at the same time.


Can you describe your practice in a few words?
Displacement, interruption, memory, reinvention....blurring, fading, erasing...messy studio...
What is your earliest memory of art?
The Sacred Heart print that was probably in most Irish Catholic homes...!
Have you shown your work in a non-white cube space before?
Yes, I showed some work in a disused old building in Rye a few years ago. It had beautiful crumbling walls and was full of interesting and curious spaces. It gave the artists the opportunity to put work in a different context and create and explore new meanings.
What does this sort of space bring to your work?
In showing at Geddes, personally I hope my work can become almost a 'part' of the domestic space but in an uncanny manner; faded blurred paintings from old photos occupy the space where unknown family photos or paintings previously hung; paintings of domestic objects floating above spaces where potentially real objects owned by previous occupants sat....a kind of pictorial memento mori to an unknown past. I love the potential for 'theatricality' within a space like this; that the space can become a part of the work and vice versa; new narratives can emerge.
Does the environment in which you exhibit your work change how your work is perceived?
A gallery like Geddes can become an immersive experience; work becomes and creates part of a bigger narrative of the space in which it is set. I think the space can almost be less intimidating than the white cube space, it allows the visitor to explore and find art in new and interesting ways.
What is your greatest weakness?
Being too self-critical. And coffee.
What was the last exhibition you visited that unnerved you?
Tino Sehgal at Martin Gropis Bau in Berlin last summer. Two of the five performance works involved walking into dark rooms, not being able to see where you were going or who else might be in the room with you. When your eyes adjusted to the darkness you could see the vague silhouettes of the performers in there. You tried to figure out what narratives were happening in the space and sometimes wondered who were performers and who were visitors. Entering the unknown without the aid of one of your major senses created a sense of great vulnerability.
Who have been your main influences over the years, both in historical and recent terms?
I have a background in theatre and work by writers such as Beckett, McDonough and Enda Walsh are a constant influence on me. The poetry and imagery created by the work of Enda Walsh in particular is so beautiful, unsettling and powerful. If I could create paintings that had the same aura as his writing I'd die happy. Over the past few years I've been reading a lot of books by Irish writers exploring family / domestic life in Ireland now and in the past; the effects of growing up in Irish 'culture'. And recently there's been a lot of wonderful new writing emerging from Irish writers off the back of the recession. In terms of artists it's ever changing... Bacon, Schiele, Kollwitz, Richard Billingham, Lars Elling, Caravaggio, Goya, Jan Steen, Manet...to name a few.
What projects do you have coming up in the future?
I have an exhibition of Editions with Hundred Years Gallery showing at Simmons Contemporary soon. There is also a self-initiated drawing project which can be seen on Twitter and Instagram with the aim of creating a drawing everyday for the whole of this year in  an attempt to (ironically) counteract a busy working life and generate more imagery for painting.


Untitled   2015



Helen Bermingham (b. Ireland 1983) is a London based artist working in collage, painting, and drawing.  She completed a degree in History of Art and Theatre at Trinity College Dublin and a postgraduate at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
She has exhibited throughout the UK and Europe including with Lubomirov Angus-Hughes Gallery, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, Hundred Years Gallery and Universität der Künste Berlin. Her collage work was recently chosen to be part of the Editions programme at Hundred Years Gallery, London. She was part of the ALAS artists residency with Matt Roberts Arts and was longlisted for Anthology 2015 at Charlie Smith London. Her work is held in private collections in the UK and the USA.


twitter  @HelBermingham