AN ARRANGEMENT IN TWO HALVES, A BENCH IN TWO PARTS - James Fuller and Marco Miehling

About

William Benington Gallery and Lily Brooke are delighted to announce a collaborative two-person show between James Fuller and Marco Miehling. An initial discussion between the galleries led to the collaboration then extending between the two artists.

An Arrangement in Two Halves, a Bench in Two Parts goes beyond the simple show-and-tell approach of presenting an intersection of two artists' works. The exhibition encourages transparency that questions Fuller and Miehling's individual sculptural practices in the process of them working collaboratively.

In order to reveal their individual work processes and the way they inform each other, the artists have decided to expose and show their practice in two stages, one evolving into the other.

The first half of the arrangement revolves around an initial state, a disassembly. The single components are kept in an in-between state of becoming, neither being solely material nor fixed individual works. The unified floor-based sculpture is composed of the separate component elements that reference potential functionality of the objects. The art handling foam used for this project allows this potential for function but also for flexible new forms.

The second half of the exhibition, opening in January 2019, evolves from the initial state: the foam components are reconfigured into two objects for sitting and newly-introduced wall-based sculptures change the focus of the exhibition, showing a different moment of production. While the first part's nature is mainly collaborative, the latter half of the show displays the individual works of the artists and positions them in conversation.

The changes in the gallery throughout the course of the exhibition echo the changes in the different objects' purposes. The method of introducing new works, assembling, re-assembling and dismantling components communicates the transformative power of the material.

James Fuller is an artist currently living and working in London. He recently graduated from Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 2018, where he was the recipient of a Leathersellers educational grant, Gilbert Bayes Scholarship grant for sculpture and a Stapely Trust educational grant. He was also awarded the Kenneth Armitage Post-graduate Sculpture Prize 2018 and the Outset x Tiffany’s Studiomakers Prize 2018.

Recent exhibitions include: 'Further Images', White Crypt, London - curated by Anaïs Lerendu & Adam Thomas, 'RCA SHOW 2018' (Sculpture), London, Northampton Contemporary Open 2018, Pupa at Assembly House, Leeds 2017, ‘ebc013' at East Bristol Contemporary and 'The Hum' at Caustic Coastal - curated by Tzuzjj, Salford 2017.

Marco Miehling's sculptural work investigates an object's relation to a site and to a conceptual concern. His practice consists of site-responsive installations, sculptures, drawings and virtual 3D-Modelling. He graduated from Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 2017.

Recent exhibitions include: 'Royal Society of Sculpture Bursary Exhibition'; London, UK, 'This is a stone stacking exhibition | with Michael Mieskes' - Nirox Foundation; Johannesburg, South-Africa, 'Among Her Leisure Occupations is Birdwatching' | – Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer; Fulmer, UK, 'The Boatswain’s Reclaim' – Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK, 'There was Nowhere to Sit I: Archetype Triptych' – Platform Southwark; London, UK.

He was awarded the Artists’ Collecting Society Studio Prize 2017, the Royal Society of Sculptors Award 2017, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park Residency Award 2017 and the Cowley Manor Arts Award 2016.

Full artist Bio and CV available on request
Further images available on request

For all enquiries, please contact:
George Marsh - Gallery Director, William Benington Gallery  george@williambenington.co.uk

 Lily Brooke - Gallery Director, Lily Brooke Gallery

info@lily-brooke.com