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.