An exhibition showcasing the works of Marc Almond, Sadie Lee, Jamie McLeod, Matthew Stradling and Caitlin Ricaud.
Image: Sadie Lee
Exhibition: Saturday 8th of February – Friday 28th of February 2020
Open Mon - Sat 12-6pm / Artist’s Reception on Saturday 8th of February 2-5pm
*Please note that some works in the exhibition may not be suitable for anyone under the age of 18.
An exhibition of the highly individual works of five contemporary artists, shown together for the very first time. Show Don’t Tell is a literary device and cinematic term. It is the technique of allowing a viewer to experience, relate to and gather information based on observation and actions, rather than written or spoken dialogue. The pieces in this group show draw on a variety of disciplines, all connected by the artists’ use of suggestion, fragmentation and implication.
:: The Artists ::
• Marc Almond came to prominence as the frontman of Soft Cell, having trained in Fine Art at Leeds University he went on to produce some of the most subversive and genre-defying pop music of the 80's and 90's, never belying his roots in Fine Art, which he has returned to in recent years. For this show he delivers his ‘Dadaesque’ montages and collages, which he calls ‘mood-boards’. Starting with a self-portrait that he then adorns with elements that are both sacred and divine from his unconsciousness and then crudely slicing and dicing them to create, almost religious-like shrines, with orgiastic abandon. Exotic festivities from his own Dante’s Inferno, with a wild cast of imagery ranging from endangered animals to savage brutes with fangs, diamond-studded collars, birds of paradise with axolotl eyes.
Image: Marc Almond
• Sadie Lee is an award-winning British figurative painter. Her realistic, challenging paintings focus on a range of subjects, including the representation of women in art, sexuality, gender and the aging body. Her paintings are a celebration of the personal politics of vulnerability, defiance and notions of ‘otherness’, with a strong sense of solidarity for her subject. Mostly known for her gritty portraits of people who sit for her, this series is an experimental juxtaposition, combining details of classical Rococco paintings with ‘70’s & ‘80’s pornography.
• Jamie McLeod specialises in a curious hybrid genre, mashing up classic portraiture and blurring the lines between iconography and the graphic arts, creating cinematic-like cameos for his subjects to exhibit and expand within. Using the mediums of signage, printmaking and photography he conjures up pulp fiction images from the city’s lost and found using inks like a hypnotic-neon-hypodermic, electro-graphics with the noise and static included. Scratching and scrawling arcane symbols, poetry and the urban detritus he stumbles over into the very image. He focuses on territories where the flesh and the spirit are in eternal opposition, in a land of dead-end-chancers, exhibitionists, pop stars, femmes fatales, wrestlers, transvestites, criminals, poseurs and whores.
Image: Jamie McLeod
• Matthew Stradling paints the body in sumptuous detail. The jewel-like colours belie the sometimes painful content. He delves into the realms of sex and death with delectation, making the painted flesh sparkle even as it speaks of its own fragility. His subjects are often the beautiful, the grotesque, the sexualised, the abject, the innocent and the damaged. For 'Show Don't Tell' Matthew is unveiling a series of paintings he has worked on for many years which blend all these subjects in a new and perversely humorous way.
Image: Matthew Stradling
•Caitlin Ricaud is a 20-year-old award winning student filmmaker from the London College of Communication. In 2018 she was commissioned to create 5 short films to be shown as an integral backdrop for Soft Cell’s grand finale concert at the O2 arena. Since then she has been in demand working continuously on music videos, short films, filming, directing and producing as a young 'gun-for-hire'. Caitlin’s work ranges from documentary pieces to the more abstract, kaleidoscopic-dream-sequences .The themes she explores are the darker aspects of the self, delving into all that it is to be human, alternative lifestyles and sexuality, body politics, capitalism, the subconscious, hedonism, icon worship, prostitution, murder, religion and many more. For this show she is creating from scratch a provocative 15-minute installation piece for the main screen.
Image: Caitlin Ricaud