Fresh Cuts | Ibrahim Azab, Jessy Boon Cowler, Hayleigh Longman and Stanislava Vaseva

About

Influenced by the concerns thrown up by the current global health emergency and the detrimental impact that that is having on artists, especially those at the beginning of their careers, Sid Motion Gallery is keen to hold true to their core values of supporting emerging talent, and is delighted to exhibit these artists for their first time in a commercial gallery.

Drawing on ideas of construction and manipulation through photography, these four artists are linked by their shared interests in sculpture and performance and explore the dialogue between the manually constructed and the digitally stitched together.

Through the tensions between digital image making and analogue play, each artist considers the photograph as an object. Ibrahim Azab makes framed digital collages which hang alongside a painted wall text in the exhibition, the paint marks weave between the printed collage and the spray-painted wall. Further breaking the boundaries of the conventional photograph, a digitally printed fabric hangs from the architecture of the space. Jessy Boon Cowler leaves traces of her hand cut collaging within her digital prints that are left unframed to reveal the materiality of the paper. Hayleigh Longman’s ideas around collage are explored in the installations themselves: prints overlapping Perspex, floor-based photographs and framed laser cut materials intended to be seen from all sides. Stanislava Vaseva’s digital prints are produced life size so the physicality of the depicted hands become present in the space challenging the seemingly 2D nature of the medium.

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Ibrahim Azab (b. 1996, Slough, UK) graduated from Arts University Bournemouth with a BA (Hons) in Photography in 2017. Since graduating, he has exhibited and published with Photoworks, 2020; The Photography Ideas book, Tate/ILEX, 2019; Elephant Magazine Summer Exhibition, 2019, and Unseen Amsterdam, 2017. Ibrahim is a member of Revolv Collective.

Jessy Boon Cowler (b.1987 London, UK) graduated from Arts University Bournemouth with a MA in Photography. She was recently named as one of Firecracker’s ‘10 Women to Watch in 2020’ for PHmuseum. Since graduating, she has exhibited at Peckham 24, Cob Gallery, Candid Arts and the AOP galleries. She has curated exhibitions in St Giles Church Crypt, Camberwell and The Viking Gallery, Margate. To date her work has been published by Der Greif, Photoworks, Aint-Bad, Uncertain States and Humble Arts Foundation.

Hayleigh Longman (b. 1995 London, UK) graduated from Manchester school of Art with a BA (hons) in Photography in 2018. She was awarded the RedEye Graduate Award in 2018 and was awarded the Metro Imaging Mentorship Award in 2019. Hayleigh’s work was exhibited at the Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK in 2018. She then exhibited at ‘Route’ in Arles, France, and at Brighton Photo Festival in 2018 for Photohastings.

Stanislava Vaseva (b. 1998, Bulgaria) will be graduating from Arts University Bournemouth with a BA (Hons) Photography in 2020. Her Graduation show is scheduled for later this year at Free Range, The Old Truman Brewery, London. Stanislava’s work will be shown in Bournemouth Emerging Arts Fringe in October 2020.