Laura Taylor: Speedboat Matchsticks

Laura Taylor returns to Surface Gallery to exhibit a solo body of work after her success at last year’s Open Show 2009, which saw Laura achieve prize-winner status with her innovative mixed-media installation Something That Produces Results, Kulit (2008).

The exhibition Speedboat Matchsticks derives from experiment, play and the relationship between form and function. The work is characterised by loose and chaotic assemblages of motorised scrap, dismembered toys, daubed paint and hanging string. Functional objects are combined to become functionless (whilst still functioning). These constructed mechanisms are composed in the style of ‘over engineered apparatus’, retaining a continuous rule to engage and amuse, rather than to fulfil a purpose. The juxtaposition of colour flickers, pulsates and moves, encouraging the viewer’s visual tension.

Laura Taylor's work flirts between opposites: order and chaos, work and leisure, the everyday and the sublime. Each construction speaks of optimism, whilst simultaneously poking fun at the inevitability of failure;

“When spun, when dropped, when pulled, when squeezed, when burnt, when frozen, when bent, when twisted, when blown, when snapped, when bounced, when cracked, when shattered, when ruptured, when split, when smashed, when pushed, when yanked, when hit, when spoiled, when dented, when scratched, when rolled, when turned, when broken…….”

‘The Observation of Objects’ 2008. L.K Taylor

The Opening Night will be held on Friday 26th March, between 6-8pm. This will be a great chance to view the work for the first time and meet the artist.

Measure and Purpose: Glimpses from the Private View

'Measure and Purpose' is an intriguing exhibition of instillation style art. The display draws strength from an exploration of scientific method and the mental processes humans go through to integrate with nature. Once entering the darkened gallery space, the work seems to draw the viewer in for closer inspection. The choice to dim the lighting works well with the concepts of the exhibition and adds intrigue, focusing attention on the work.

The exhibition successfully combines a variety of media such as ceramics, paintings and technical instillations.

Presented in varying scales, the work draws the viewer around the space. It is also nice to see the use of light boxes as presentation units in the floor space. Kate Bridgen and Pippa Gatty's work is thought provoking and presents their personal journey. The viewer can connect with the artwork, leaving a lasting impression.

Hannah King

Measure and Purpose

Measure and Purpose

Pippa Gatty, Kate Brigden

9^th - 13^th February 2010

Private View: Monday 8th February 6 - 8pm

‘Measure and Purpose' is an exhibition engaging with ideas of exploration, pseudo-scientific study and the drive to explore and to explain. Yi-Fu Tuan in Topophilia explains ‘the artificial environment they [humans] have built is an outcome of mental processes- similarly, myths, legends, taxonomies, and science. All these achievements may be seen as cocoons that humans have wove in order to feel more at home in nature.’ (Tuan, P.13) Both Gatty and Brigden’s work draws reference from scientific method. There is a need to map, measure, and to de-mystify, but it is where these techniques fail to fully quantify that creates a platform on which the work is made.

Kate Brigden’s practise is a synthesis of two conflicting attitudes to viewing the world, from a scientific, taxonomical approach, where everything has to be explained and ordered, and from a phenomenological approach where the world is viewed as a ‘continuous,’ unfolding and animate.

Factual and imagined stories of discovery and exploration is the foundation to Pippa Gatty’s work, drawing parallels between her quest as an artist and what drives her with that of an adventurer and explorer. The role of theatre, and the act of pretending and believing is addressed within the work; which engages a suspension of disbelief and a documentary aesthetic.

Kate Brigden (b. 1982, London) studied BA Fine Art at Winchester School of Art and then completed her MA at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2008.

Pippa Gatty (b. 1965, London) completed her MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2008.