About
The Contemporary Art Society's office in Emerald Street provides the opportunity for us to showcase the work of artists, artist-run spaces and galleries working outside of London. We host the launch events of new installations twice a year, often arranging complimentary evening events to contextualize the work being shown. We welcome visitors to see the work from 9.30 - 17.30 Monday to Friday.
Founded in 2004, OUTPOST is an artist-run contemporary gallery space based in Norwich presenting a core programme of eleven exhibitions a year alongside off-site projects and regular events.
OUTPOST's recent programme have included solo exhibitions by Matthew Darbyshire, Jamie Shovlin and Keith Wilson with Mark Wilsher exhibiting in April.
For Rotate Outpost has made a selection of six artists from their own artist members' archive. Helene Appel, Rob Filby, Neil Baker, Jacques Rogers, Karen Cunningham and Steve Bishop all have a strong relationship with OUTPOST and have been chosen to represent the broad spectrum of OUTPOST's membership and exhibition programme.
These relationships span OUTPOST's history: from Rob Filby who exhibited back in 2005 to Neil Baker's solo exhibition Mirrom in March this year.
The artists:
Helene Appel
Helene Appel exhibited at OUTPOST with her solo show 'The Minutes' in July 2008 and was also selected by Gavin Turk for the 2007 Members Show. Appel's often large, sparse oil paintings employ tromp l'oeil to create the illusion of masking tape or fabric sticking to the surface of the canvas. She often depicts fragments, dust and debris or familiar, domestic items. Appel's paintings explore the line between gesture and form. Natural and casual representations are made to relate to the processes of abstract painting.
Rob Filby
Rob Filby lives and works in Norwich and presented a solo show 'Recent Work and Work & Co' at OUTPOST in July 2005. Filby was also selected by OUTPOST to show at Zoo Art Fair in 2009. Filby's practice examines the way in which a being interacts with an object, raising obvious denotations around the way we are educated to perceive an art object. The naà ¯ve playfulness of a cat in Early Creaty & Co. (Doing), documents a cat interfacing with a constructed cement pyramid, which in its intrigue damages the object. Filby manages to comically construct a critique on the relation between viewer and object and gallery etiquette. More recently Filby has created a series of Mood Boards - large-scale digital prints of collages, which although two-dimensional, explore texture through images of woven materials, basketry and hair.
Neil Baker
Neil Baker is a painter currently working in London. He has been a long-standing OUTPOST member, and will be presenting his solo show 'Mirrom' at OUTPOST in March 2010. Bakers' paintings occupy playful territory using loose, abstract, painterly marks to construct comical references. Although his paintings work with the notion of silliness, their construction is far from it. His paintings are meticulously and carefully considered, involving a more laborious process than they perhaps suggest. Baker describes his work as 'a practice of resistance'; the work that leaves the studio is that which resists his attempts to practice.
Jacques Rogers
Jacques Rogers is a recent graduate from Norwich University College of the Arts, and is currently on the OUTPOST Steering Committee. Rogers is interested in the notion of style, aesthetics, fashion and taste in relation to the fine art object. His practice is characterised by a concern for how art objects can, should and might generate both myth and meaning. Rogers is currently involved in an artist collaborative project Kimi Conrad.
Karen Cunningham
Karen Cunningham, a Glasgow-based artist, recently had a week long solo show as part of OUTPOST's Members show 2009 selected by Ryan Gander and Rebecca May Marston. Cunningham habitually uses manifestly simple construction techniques to create her works. She expresses an interest in 'technology as a measure of a culture's progress'. Straddling elements of both history and the future, Cunningham utilises and explores materials and content that pull in references from science fiction, pageantry and new technologies amongst other things.
Steve Bishop
'Instant distance/distant instance' at OUTPOST in April 2009 was one of Bishop's first solo shows. His film Meanwhile was also exhibited in the OUTPOST show-reel as part of the Aurora film festival in October. Bishop's ideas and practice focus on the complexities of representation. Often making abstractions from popular culture to explore the way in which meaning is mediated in an image driven world, his prints and sculptural work engage with the dialectic of desire and value. His sculptural composites combine taxidermy, domestic objects, neon tubing and made elements whilst his film work draws on popular references and found scenarios such as adverts or Universal Pictures title series. Through using juxtapositions of the profane and the momentous that are characteristic of advertising, Bishop subverts our conflated understanding of beauty and meaning.
