Alida Sayer: 'There is no why'

About

24 June ' 31 July 2010

Marsden Woo Gallery is delighted to present the work of Alida Sayer, an exciting award-winning young artist whose interdisciplinary approach transcends the borders of art, design and installation as she meditates on the question of how we visualize time.

Sayer's emphatic and enigmatic title is inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse 5 and with him she shares a pre-occupation with how time is 'arranged' in our minds. Her experimental typography presented as wall'pieces and projections allows the viewer to experience her three dimensional approach to distilling the essence of a four-dimensional universe. Employing traditional graphic techniques, including letterpress, without reverence and using a monochrome palette, she emphasises the starkness of her message. The stacking or layering of paper and Perspex are just some of the creative strategies she uses to communicate a simultaneous vision of past, present and future. She also exploits light as a material, using lightboxes and OHP projections to invite the viewer to focus on Vonnegut's thoughts as in the works entitled They couldn't imagine and There is no beginning. Yet there is also a playfulness about her work, emphasised by her choice of texts, assured use of materials and manipulation of scale. We may all be the slaves and products of Chronos but this is not a cause for despair; as Vonnegut wrote, 'All time is all time'.

Alida Sayer (b. 1985) studied Architecture, then Visual Communication and Illustration at Glasgow School of Art (2004-2009) and was winner of an Output Foundation Print Creativity Award (Amsterdam) and a D&AD Best New Blood Award (London) in 2009. She works across the fields of graphic design, typography, 3D-design, animation and illustration, recently undertaking freelance projects and commissions for clients including Regular Music, Glasgow University (Association of Art Historians) and Marsden Woo Gallery. Examples of her work are featured in the books 3D Typography by Jeanette Abbink and Emily C M Anderson (Mark Batty Publishers/Thames & Hudson) and in Lettering: A Manual of Process by Andrew Haslam (Laurence King), both to be published in 2010.

Marsden Woo Project Space is curated by Tessa Peters and Janice West

The Marsden Woo Project Space is an exciting new initiative running alongside our established programme of solo and small group exhibitions by gallery artists. MW Project Space allows us to respond quickly to significant bodies of innovative work and will be used to showcase the work of talented emerging artists and designers and fresh directions in the work of more established artists. These exhibitions are organized at short notice, so please check our website regularly for news on forthcoming shows and events.

For more information, images, or to arrange an interview with the artist please contact Tatjana Marsden or Alida Sayer Tel: 020 7336 6396 Fax: 020 7336 6391
Email: press@marsdenwoo.com