Simon Woolham - The Wanderer

About

Simon Woolham is concerned with public and private spaces and the stories that unfold in them, often working with the simplest of materials such as biro on A4 paper. His work is delicate, enchanting and often unsettling, unearthing memories from the places we use or overlook in our everyday lives. He depicts tree stumps, broken fences and areas of grasslands; spaces and objects are full of meaning and have a tale to tell, a tale Simon seeks to unearth and attempt to tell through his work.

More recently Simon has been working on a series of pop-up drawings and a new hand-cut pop-up book. Often including words and text the works inhabit the space between two and three dimensions, transforming folded paper into emotive sites for memory and recollection.

For this new exhibition Simon has spent a week occupying the front-of-house and behind the scenes areas of 20-21 Visual Arts Centre. Interviewing the staff, recording sounds and collecting stories, his aim is to build a picture of the building from the memories and recollections of those that have had it as their workplace over the last 10 years. From these discussions he has made a new series of drawings and pop-up paper artworks that will be on display alongside soundworks, drawings and prints.

Simon will be at the venue on Saturday 27 April to perform a series of impromptu storytelling sessions.