Workshop
Threadbare | A participatory workshop lead by artist Wayne Lucas
10 Jul 2022
Bermondsey Project Space
London, United Kingdom
Part One: El Umbral – The Threshold, the first exhibition from The Portals Project.
The installed paintings, drawings, works in embroidery thread, and video artworks establish a scene in which the fictional characters of the pieces begin to exist, and where worlds are formed.
These works are thresholds that visitors may enter: unbounded spaces, fantastic holes, precarious caves – sites of uncertainty, displacement and risk. The four artists, Helena Goldwater, Lucía Imaz King, Wayne Lucas and Simon Vincenzi use different, but interconnected tactics to present portals where each lead to a turning point.
Thresholds, whether in fiction or in architecture, invite us to leave a space behind in order to enter another; to decide to cross into a different world, one that may initially seem impenetrable but that opens up in time. In post-pandemic public life, spaces increasingly feature transparent screens to protect us from contamination forming invisible divides. By contrast the thresholds in El Umbral break down boundaries and contaminate the imaginary. The invitation to pass through these portals offers choices that are intentionally unsettling.
The Portals Project has been supported by University of Brighton‘s Inclusion and Diversity Fund, and by State Magazine London
About the Artists
Helena Goldwater makes performance art and paintings where a dedication to process is a way of exploring how concepts can be developed over time to inhabit something ‘other’. Her work has been shown at galleries and festivals, nationally and internationally, including, Action: A provisional history of the 90s, MACBA: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; gut flora, MOCA, London; Nature Morte, Guildhall Art Gallery, London; 1st Venice International Performance Art Week, Italy; If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, de Appel, Amsterdam; and at the Tate [Britain + Liverpool]. She has also produced archives of 1970s UK performance art histories, Glimpses of Before, and with Rob La Frenais, Alex Eisenberg & Live Art Development Agency, an online resource on 1980s UK-based performance art, Edge of an Era, which also commissioned new works.
Lucía Imaz King produces drawings, paintings and video installations. She is also founding director of VisionMix, an international artists’ moving image network, has lived/worked in the Netherlands for 11 years and in India for 5 years. Her large-scale drawings investigate the temporal and spatial properties of filmmaking and painting; film storytelling forms that create a perceptual relationship with the viewer in relation to the painted (and drawn) image. Her work typically explores imagined, improbable and non-figurative landscapes; speculative spaces that struggle to acquire a sense of rootedness and belonging. King’s projects have recently been shown at galleries such as Hong-gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2021) Espacio Santa Clara, Sevilla, 2020; Aspa Contemporary, Madrid, 2019; Appleton Gallery, Lisbon, 2019; Santoraspace205, Santa Ana, California, 2018, and ‘Future Orbits’, Kochi-Muziris Biennial, India (2017) the latter curated by her as VisionMix director.
Wayne Lucas’ work often takes on a biographical form, exploring his relationship to the body and the space it inhabits, while addressing the human condition, sexuality and isolation. Blurring the activities of painting and sculpture through a restless and obsessive accretion of materials including textiles, garments, found objects and paint, recent works are both a physical play with ideas and their representation. A reference to art history anchors the works, which oscillate between the two; a place between memory and fantasy. Selected shows include; Urban Bird, James Coleman gallery, London 2004; Obtractivism, Hales Gallery, London 2004, Prague Biennale, 2004, Deptford x retrospective, APT, London 2008. He was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing prize in 2008 and 2009. He was winner of the APT bursary to create a group show, Prognostic Bridewell, Apt gallery, London 2010 and The Thoughts of stuff, Royal Society of Sculptors, 2010
Simon Vincenzi is a London based theatre director, choreographer and designer. His theatre shows, performances, live-streams, websites and installations have been seen as part of The Venice Biennale, Kunsten Festival des Arts, Theater Der Welt/Hallé, Netmage Festival/Bologna, The Barbican Centre/London, Live Arts Week/Bologna, Malta Festival/Poznan and Bad House Festival/Helsinki.
His work is often the result of expanded processes over various forms that include invisible dances… (with Bock & Vincenzi) 1999-2007, Operation Infinity 2007-2016, the ongoing editions of From The Dead Air Orgy and The Exquisite Corpse. Simon has designed operas, theatre and dance shows for Impact Theatre, Rose English, English National Opera, The ICA, Andrew Poppy, Duckie BAROKTHEGREAT and Lea Anderson
Events
Events are open to everyone. Arrangements will be made for a BSL sign language interpreter on request to the gallery.
Event 1. Sunday 10th July 10-1pm
Threadbare: A participatory workshop at the gallery led by Wayne Lucas reflecting on drawing through sewing and memory. Using the needle and thread as a drawing implement.
Ticketed, £15 + booking fee. Limited places. Early booking recommended.
Event 2. Tuesday 12th July 4-6pm
LGBTQIA+ Arts Curation and Collaboration. An online discussion/webinar on this topic, chaired by Rachael House with the panel Andrew Etherington and Kia Matanky-Becker (Bermondsey Project Space), Jamie Wyld (videoclub), and the exhibiting artists. Public participation and feedback is welcome.
Join link to be posted on the gallery website prior to the event.
Event 3. Thursday 14th July 7.30-9pm
Artists’ Talk chaired by Gill Addison. Meet The Portals Project artists in a discussion at the gallery about the exhibition, the project, and the works included, with Q&A.
Ticketed, £5 + booking fee. Limited places. Early booking recommended.
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