An Anthropomorphic Display: Artist Films Screening

About

In Hands Rhythm, Susan Sluglett’s paintings play with the anthropomorphic in their depiction of the crows that live around the University and pairs of white gloves that retain the life of the hands that once wore them. These motifs come out of stories about David Bomberg and the Borough Group told to Sluglett during her residency. In her studio, Sluglett repeatedly worked across sheets of paper arranged in grids and sequences on the wall (reminiscent of animation storyboards). The urgency of her daily drawing practice, together with the histories behind her images, saw recurring ideas gradually take on their own subtle character and spirit.

Inspired by Sluglett’s work, this evening of artist films explores the different understandings and usages of the term ‘anthropomorphic’ in artists’ contemporary film and video practice. In the same way that Sluglett’s gloves and birds are far from being cartoons, the films that have been chosen avoid literal human stand-ins. Objects and animals have an understated sense of personality, their own life or agency, or have become protagonists for a wider ideological message.

This will also be one of the last chances to see Susan Sluglett’s exhibition, before it closes on Saturday 4 July. The exhibition will be open 18.30-18.55pm.

Artists and Films:

Rosa Aiello, First Person Leaky (2014)

Edwina Ashton, Earthquake (1998); …in a rose columned forest (2011)

Suky Best, Alwyn Park House (2011)

Savinder Bual, Wing (2013)

Elizabeth Price, User Group Disco (2009)

Margaret Salmon, Housework (2014)

Joseph Wallace, Objects of Desire (2009)
 
Rosa Aiello (b. Hamilton, Canada) studies at Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main with prof. Peter Fischli. Rosa was awarded a Canada Council Film and Media Grant 2013, Ontario Arts Council Media Arts Grant 2013, and Triple Canopy commission 2013. Her work has been shown at MUMOK, Vienna, ICA, London, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, and SculptureCenter, New York. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at Eli Ping Frances Perkins, New York, and screenings at Fahrenheit, Los Angeles, and De Kabinetten van de Vleeshal, Middelburg.

Edwina Ashton makes videos, drawings, sculptures and costumes. Mr Panz at Lake Leman, notes on m, (notes on mammals and habitats) (2010), her first animation, was co-commissioned by Animate Projects and Drawing Room, London. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths and graduated in 1993. She is represented by Works|Projects Bristol and had solo exhibitions at Peer in 2005, Camden Arts Centre in 2006. She has exhibited in New York, Rome, Miami, Berlin and Tokyo. In February 2010 she had a solo show at Works|Projects Bristol. …in a rose columned forest was co-commissioned by Phoenix Gallery and the Animated Exeter festival in association with Animate Projects.

Suky Best is a visual artist, working with animation, print and installation; she has exhibited nationally and internationally. Commissioned works include, Early Birds, an Animate Projects commission for Channel 4 in association with Arts Council England, recently included in Extinct at the Natural History Museum, andAssembly at Tate Britain, London. Past commissions include, About Running, for The Great North Run;Stone Voices, for the Devils Glen in Ireland; From the Archive, for University College Hospital London; The Park in Winter, for Arts Council England and Horses for Great Ormond Street Hospital. She has exhibited at the Baltic Gateshead and Art Now Lightbox at Tate Britain and has had solo exhibitions and publications, including The Return of the Native at Pump House Gallery London, and Wild Interior at Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art, London. She is represented by Danielle Arnaud.

Savinder Bual studied painting at Winchester School of Art and photography at the Royal College of Art graduating in 2010. Exhibitions and screenings include Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Peer & Animate Projects, Wimbledon Space, Turner Contemporary, CCA and OV gallery Shanghai. Her work has been featured in publications such as It’s Nice That and Vision Magazine, China. She is an Associate artist at Firstsite and she is currently working on a series of work that is funded by the Arts Council of England to be shown at the Minories this summer. Wing was commissioned by Animate Projects and PEER.

Elizabeth Price (b. 1966 Bradford, Yorkshire) grew up in Luton Bedfordshire, attending Putteridge Comprehensive High School. She received a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University in 1988, and then an MA in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art in 1991. In 1999 Price completed a PhD in Fine Art at the University of Leeds. In 2004 Price won the Jerwood Artists Platform Prize. Between 2004-6 she was Research Fellow in Fine Art at London Metropolitan University and in 2007 was awarded the Stanley Picker Fellowship at Kingston University.

Margaret Salmon (b. 1975 Suffurn, New York) lives and works between Kent, and New York. She creates filmic portraits that weave together poetry and ethnography. Focusing on individuals in their everyday habitats, her films capture the minutiae of daily life and infuse them with gentle grandeur, touching upon universal human themes. Adapting techniques drawn from various cinematic movements, such as Cinema Vérité, the European Avant Garde and Italian Neo-Realism, Salmon’s orchestrations of sound and image introduce a formal lyricism into the tradition of realist film. She won the first Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2006. Her work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and the Berlin Biennale in 2010 and was featured in individual exhibitions at Witte de With in Rotterdam and Whitechapel Gallery in London among others. Housework was commissioned by Animate Projects and PEER.

Joseph Wallace is a film and theatre director based in London and is a 2015 BBC Performing Arts Fellow. His short films have won awards and been screened at festivals internationally. He has created animations for film, theatre and television and his live-action work ranges from fiction to dance and documentary films. He has directed, written and designed theatre; from political pieces to shows with young people. His work has been featured on Motionographer, Future Shorts and Vimeo Staff Picks; he has made work in the UK, Europe and America and was nominated for a BAFTA Cymru award in 2012.
 
Image: Suky Best, still from Alwyn Park House, 2011, image courtesy of the artist