Philip Eglin and Tony Hayward: 'Double Take'

About

Philip Eglin and Tony Hayward struck up a friendship when still students at the Royal College of Art in the early 1980s. Over the years they have maintained close contact, using one another as respected sounding-boards for fresh ideas. While, on the face of it, they may appear to be distinctive in their respective creative interests, this shared exhibition will offer the opportunity to appreciate some of their enduring points of connection.

In the year of the World Cup and the Pope's visit to the UK, Philip Eglin's current works include commentaries on football 'as the new religion' as well as the recent press coverage around scandals involving a number of Roman Catholic priests. His works make use of anagram wordplay and draw on a number of historical ceramic styles including Staffordshire flat-backs, whose subjects were often matters of interest to the Victorian popular press, such as the exploits of celebrated sporting figures, or events of royalty, politics and crime. Other references are to Chinese Export porcelain of the 18th century, in particular, the often less than flattering portrayals of Western subjects. He also incorporates drawings made by his children of further germane examples from the history of art and design.

Tony Hayward's works also display affection for interests expressed in and by popular culture. They include what he regards as collaborative works, in which he has taken paintings of idealised landscapes by anonymous artists (sourced in a Brussels flea market), fondly extending them to create lovingly crafted 3-D vistas. His 'Loving Couples' porcelain figurines originate from a similar source and he 'restores' damaged second-hand artefacts by adding a replacement head to upset and reinvent the sentiments of a piece: Frankenstein meets Arcadia. In a collection of his most recent 2-D collages he uses a large hole-punch to remove part of a found image, replacing the lost section with one from an unrelated image to create unnerving works rich with surprising poetic tensions.

Biographical information:

Philip Eglin (born 1959) studied at Staffordshire Polytechnic (1979-82) and the Royal College of Art, London (1983-86). He has exhibited internationally and his work can be found in major private and public collections that include Auckland Museum, New Zealand; Mint Museum, North Carolina, USA; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. He was winner of the prestigious Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts: Ceramics in 1996.

Tony Hayward studied Sculpture at Saint Martins School of Art and subsequently Ceramics at the Royal College of Art. He has exhibited widely in the UK including shows at the Victoria Miro Gallery, Flowers East, and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Internationally he has exhibited in the US, Netherlands, Belgium and the Czech Republic. His work is in various collections from Unilever to the British Council. In 2010 he is exhibiting in the Jerwood Contemporary Makers and is curating a sculpture exhibition at Winchester entitled 'Heft'. Hayward travels frequently to India and has formed a collection of recycled artefacts, which have generated a number of publications including 'Made in India' and 'Indian Rat Traps'. He is an artist/publisher and lectures at the Royal College of Art and Camberwell College of Arts.

For Further information, images, or to arrange an interview with the artists please contact Tatjana Marsden or Alida Sayer.

Tel: 020 7336 6396

Email: info@marsdenwoo.com