Paradoxes of Experience: An NN Contemporary Staff Show

About

This mixed media exhibition is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the community of artists that work at NN. Showcasing work created by the team who deliver the programme of the organisation allows us to present the many creative personalities and perspectives that contribute to the running of this contemporary arts space. As the NN team prepare to relocate to a new building, this exhibition is an opportunity to reflect upon how working with NN’s gallery and studio spaces has impacted the practice of a group of artists from Northamptonshire.

The exhibition title is taken from Brian O’Doherty’s famous text ‘Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space’, in which O’Doherty discusses the differentiating experience, for each participant, that all galleries produce. Though NN’s gallery space is ostensibly a white cube, its large shop-front windows create a connection with Northampton’s town centre, bringing artworks out of the neutral space and disrupting the view of passers-by. Paradoxes of Experience explores the space of the gallery and the surrounding Cultural Quarter through a unique lens of authorship. This is a space well-known to the artists who have each spent time intimately working with it, either through curatorial projects, workshops, exhibition installs and de-installs or invigilating the gallery programmes. Their in-depth knowledge of the building has informed the way that they have collaborated, experimented and contributed to the gallery’s programme. This exhibition is an opportunity to share this knowledge in a new way, and for publics to encounter some of the previously unseen creativity that shapes NN.

The work on show includes photography, painting, film and sculpture, demonstrating the wide range of practices of the NN team. The exhibiting artists are: Freddy Blackman, Lewis Bridge, Louise Clarke, Cordell Garfield, Luke Harby, Fatoumata Jallow, Kaiya Khatri, Motomi Kozaki, Kevin MᶜCully, Mia Middleton, Jaylen Smith & Stephanie Takyi.