29 August - 31 August 2009

Featuring:

Henry Coombes; Andrew Cross; Simon Faithfull; Chrystel Lebas; Mike Marshall; Sophy Rickett; Ben Rivers

This Is My Land is a screening programme featuring video works by internationally acclaimed artists Henry Coombes, Andrew Cross, Simon Faithfull, Chrystel Lebas, Mike Marshall, Sophy Rickett, and Ben Rivers. The screenings will take place across ArtSway's three galleries.

The programme features works that highlight various aspects and sensations of rural life, and in particular how land is utilised, exploited and managed by human endeavour. For example, Henry Coombes' Laddy and the Lady (2005) is an archly surreal pastiche of the rituals associated with countryside sport and pursuits. The main character in the film – Laddy – is a golden retriever whose working life is a series of controlled abuses by human beings. Ben Rivers’ This is My Land (2006) is a portrait of Jake Williams, who lives alone in the wilds of Aberdeenshire in Scotland, all the time communing with the land around him. A number of works included in the exhibition also focus on bucolic characteristics of the rural, such as Chrystel Lebas' elegant film Blue Hour (2006) that documents the subtle arrival of dawn within a woodland copse containing Bluebells. Lebas’ film is eerily devoid of a human presence, a conceit that is similarly echoed in Andrew Cross’ film Knebworth ’76 (2007), a document of the site of the famous festival that is eerily empty but points towards latent sense of human memory and experience.

Peripheral aspects of the rural – such as the coastline (particularly relevant with regards to the New Forest) features in Mike Marshall's film Volume and Frequency (2009) in which black and white footage records surfers waiting patiently for a wave, interspersed with shots of trees and frames of colour, suggesting a sense of urgency and languor. Demarcations within the rural – such as roads – are also examined, and is the focus of Owl, M6 (2000), an eerie film of an owl wing caught in car headlights, by Sophy Rickett. Excerpts from Simon Faithfull’s 0º00 Navigation (2008) dispense with physical demarcations, instead using the logic of a migrating frog and featuring the ‘deranged’ journey of an unidentified man as he obsessively follows the Greenwich Meridian through the UK, surmounting all obstacles in his path.

Private View and Reception for the Artist

Saturday 29 August 2009, 2pm - 5pm
Please join us for the opening of This Is My Land with a chance to meet and discuss the work with the artists themselves.

FREE: Booking Essential.

To book a place please contact Jack Lewis on 01590 682260 (ext.6) or email: jack.lewis@artsway.org.uk

Henry Coombes
Laddy and the Lady, film to DVD, 12 mins, 2005
Laddy and The Lady follows an out of control golden retriever, owned by a Lady, on a pheasant shoot. Scenes of the shoot are inter-cut with flashbacks to Laddy's troubled past as a puppy, wrenched from his mother's side. On the shoot, Laddy is subjected to forms of physical and verbal abuse associated with gundog handling. His inability to behave and retrieve the dead birds results in relentless punishment. Laddy becomes a receiver – a golden receiver – of abuse.

Henry Coombes Biography
Henry Coombes was born in London in 1977 and completed his BA at Glasgow School of Art in 2002. Solo shows include Anna Helwing, LA, Black Button (Cooper Gallery, Dundee), and Suzie Q Project Space, Zurich. Selected group shows include If Not Now (Broadway 1602, New York), An Archaeology (The Zabludowicz Collection: Project Space 176, London), Cabinet of Curiosities (Museo Civico di Rovereto, Trentino) and more recently Grin & Bear It: Cruel Humour in Art & Life (Lewis Glucksmann Gallery, University of Cork). In addition Coombes was a recipient of the 2005 Scottish Arts Council/Scottish Screen Film award and his subsequent short film, Laddy and the Lady, premiered at Tramway, Glasgow in June 2006. It has since screened at film festivals in Oberhausen, Norway, Edinburgh, Stockholm, and Nova Scotia. Coombes represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale in 2007, in which he premiered his third film Gralloch, which was subsequently screened alongside a solo presentation of his work for the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles in 2008. His fourth film The Bedfords will be screened in 2009 at Light & Sie, Dallas and the Zabludowicz Collection: Project Space 176.

Andrew Cross
Knebworth ’76, DVD, 9mins, 2007
On the 21st of August 1976, towards the end of a blistering hot summer’s afternoon, along with 200,000 or so other people Andrew Cross witnessed American band Lynyrd Skynyrd going down a storm in a corner of Knebworth Park, in Hertfordshire. During the 1970’s Knebworth became the home to a number of prominent rock festivals including Led Zeppelin’s final UK performance in 1979. At the age of fifteen the 1976 festival was Cross’s third rock concert: it was a memorable experience.

Cross returned to Knebworth on the 21st of August 2006. Using small photos taken in 1976 he identified more-or-less the location where he had spent the day thirty years previously. From there he videoed Lynyrd Skynyrd performing their classic song Freebird. Cross comments: ‘Absence, presence; myth, reality? I point my camera at a place redolent of my past and the screen is filled by images and sounds of an ever-present now. Rather than arresting time it is as if my camera is trying to will something to happen. Slightly absurd? Possibly. But then so was presence of thousands of Britons gathered in a picturesque English landscape singing about a ‘Sweet Home’ in Alabama. It turns out the band weren’t from Alabama either.’

Andrew Cross Biography
Andrew Cross is interested in relationships between landscape and the memories that they may evoke. After graduating in Painting at Bath Academy of Art in 1983 Cross established a successful career as a curator. He began making and exhibiting his own work in the late 1990s and is now a lecturer in photography at Southampton Solent University.

Known for his work on US railroads and transport infrastructures, Cross’s first book of photographs Some Trains in America was published in 2001 and his first video work was short-listed for Beck’s Futures in 2004. Also in 2004 3 hours from here: An English Journey – a film about post-industrial landscape and economy – was commissioned by Film & Video Umbrella and the John Hansard Gallery. An exhibition of all his US railroad video work was held at George Eastman House Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester New York in 2008.

More recently Cross has been focussing on Salisbury Plain, the landscape of his early youth, and the sites of 1970s rock festivals. He is currently working on a film about the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and drum solos with the drummer Carl Palmer, due to be shown at Ikon Gallery and other venues during 2010.

Simon Faithfull
0º00 Navigation, DVD, 4 x 4min extracts, 2008
Using the logic of a migrating frog rather than a rational human being, 0º00 Navigation is an obsessive and deranged journey along the Greenwich Meridian.

Always seen from behind, a figure first swims out of the seawater where the meridian hits the south-coast of Britain at Peace Heaven in Hampshire. The solitary person emerges out of the water carrying hand held GPS device and using this implement he proceeds to walk directly north along the 0º00’00” line of latitude. Any obstacle encountered is negotiated – fences climbed, properties crossed, buildings entered via nearest windows or apertures, streams waded, hedges crawled through. The figure gradually makes his way up through southeast Britain, through London, the Midlands and ultimately re-enters the sea at Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. The figure then slowly swims away into the North Sea, to head ever further north.

In 0º00 Navigation the hypothetical, geographic construct that is the zero line of longitude is treated as if it were a real phenomenon – a path mapped out to follow. The Greenwich meridian bisects southern England because it was here that it was constructed: fabricated using treaties, maps and the mechanics of naval power.

Simon Faithfull Biography
Simon Faithfull is a contemporary artist whose work has been exhibited extensively around the world. Recent projects include a video-work recording the journey of a domestic chair as it is carried to the edge of space (commissioned by Arts Catalyst), a drawing project sending back live digital-drawings from a two month journey to Antarctica (an Arts Council International Fellowship with British Antarctic Survey) and an animated film developed from drawings made on a mundane walk out of London along the A13 trunk road (a Channel 4 TV commission with Arts Council England). Recent exhibitions have included solo shows in Galerie Polaris (Paris), Stills (Edinburgh) and Cell (London).

Faithfull was born in Oxfordshire, UK, studied at Central St Martins and then Reading University. His practice takes a variety of forms – ranging from video making, to digital drawing projects, installation work and writing. Faithfull is also a lecturer at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.

Chrystel Lebas
Blue Hour, High Definition on DVD, 60mins, 2006
The hour-long film Blue Hour (2006), first exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour in 2006, records the hour of twilight in a bluebell wood in Wiltshire, UK. Referring to fairytales, stories and legends, the place was chosen for its visual impact as well as the symbolism it carries. The bluebells form a vast purple carpet extended to infinity in the forest just emerging from winter.

The film records the phenomenon of phosphorescence, when plants and creatures glowing in the dying light form a clear division between the blue and green in the picture frame, evoking the ‘green ray’, the unusual and most prized twilight effect, when the last segment of the setting sun momentarily flashes as green on the western horizon. In Blue Hour the decreasing of light allows only a blue ray to become visible in the dark. The attempt here is to place the viewer in a contemplative state, able to stay and experience a natural phenomenon lasting one hour, looking at the movement of time barely visible. Blue Hour makes us conscious of the time and space we occupy and give us an insight into the nature of time itself. The film allows a moment to unfold in real time; we become conscious that a moment is unbearably long and that our perception of time is both subjective and inaccurate.

Chrystel Lebas Biography
Born in France, Chrystel Lebas has lived and worked in London since 1994. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1997 and has exhibited in the UK and internationally. Solo exhibitions include: Between Dog and Wolf, Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea, UK (2008); Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2003) and Gallerie Vassie, Amsterdam (2007);‘Blue Hour’ at The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2006), and film screening at The Musée de la chasse et de la nature, Paris (2008). Group Exhibitions include: Animalism curated by Greg Hobson, National Media Museum, Bradford (2009); Nature fragile, le cabinet de Deyrolle, curated by Claude D’Anthenaise, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (2008) catalogue published by Beaux Arts TTM Editions; Seeking a place for oblivion, curated by Sandra Krizic Roban, Art Pavilion, Zagreb, Croatia (2008) catalogue published by Hrvtski fotosavez; Twilight: Photography in The Magic Hour, curated by Kate Best and Martin Barnes, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2006) catalogue published by V&A and Merrel Publishing

Works by Chrystel Lebas are held in several private and public collections amongst them the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), The National Media Museum (Bradford), Vital Art (London), The Citigroup Private Bank (UK), and The Wilson Center of Photography (London). She is currently working on commissions for Christies in England with an exhibition to be held in November 2009, and The Museum of Hunting and Nature in France. Research funded by The University of the Arts London is supporting current development of photographic and film works made in Risnjak National Park, Croatia.

Mike Marshall
Volume and Frequency, DVD, 2009
Volume and Frequency (2009) shows a distant group of surfers patiently waiting for a wave, interspersed with images of trees in movement. Filmed in black and white, with carefully timed intervals of intense colour, the transition from one shot to another suggests a passing of propellant forces between scenarios, whilst a soundtrack employing the musical language of suspense constructs a balance between languid relaxation and anticipatory tension.

Mike Marshall Biography
Mike Marshall’s work explores the potential energy of site and moment. He uses recordable media to dissect and reconfigure experience: slowing and intensifying in order to examine and produce the often-subtle shifts that can occur in response to the situations before us. Marshall was born in London in 1967, where he lives and works. Solo shows and projects include: No Love No Hate, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston; Mike Marshall, Union Gallery, London; Mike Marshall, Image Furini Arte Contemporanea, Arezzo, Italy; Mike Marshall, Pharos Centre of Contemporary Art, Nicosia, Cyprus; At The Edge of the Known World, The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool; The Intimacy of Distance, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Here is Fine, Tate St Ives. Group shows include: Figuring Landscapes, Touring UK and Australia; Single Shot, Various venues nationally; Environment Archelogy, Retretti Art Centre, Finland; Happy Believers, Werkleitz Biennale, Germany; A Grain of Dust a Drop of Water, Gwanju Biennale, Korea; Fantastic Realism, Art Hall Tallinn, Estonia; Days Like These, Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London.

www.mikemarshall.info

Sophy Rickett
Owl, M6, DVD, 100 second loop, 2000
Presented in slow motion, Owl, M6 presents just 429 frames of filmed footage of the limp body of a dead owl lying on a road at night. The headlamps of an approaching car briefly illuminate the wing, picking it out of the darkness. The movement of air from the passing car causes the wing to flap back into life, and just for a moment, this fluttering movement is captured by the light from a second car, which is close behind the first. Almost instantly however, the wing tightens again, and seems to hug the road in the moment before it is run over for a second time, and plunged immediately back into darkness.

Sophy Rickett Biography
Sophy Rickett was born in London in 1970 and lives and works in London. She graduated in 1999 with an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art. Selected solo exhibitions include: De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill; Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Ffotogallery Cardiff; Alberto Peola, Turin, Italy, British School at Rome. Recent group exhibitions include Time Warp at Centre Rhenan d’Art Contemporain, Alsace, France; East Wing at the Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, London; New Photography in Britain at Galleria Civica, Modena, Italy; Les Peintres de la Vie Moderne at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fotografierte Landschaften at Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig Germany and Il Potere Delle Donne at Il Museo di Trento, Italy. In 2005 a monograph documenting 10 years of her photographic work was published by Steidl, Göttingen/ Photoworks. Recent film screenings include: LOOP Film Festival, Liceu Opera, Barcelona; Birds Eye Film Festival, Tate Britain and Prince Charles Cinema. The recipient of several awards and fellowships, she was awarded a 2010 Artist Associate-ship at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. Most recently she has been awarded the Icona 2009 prize at ArtVerona, Italy.

Ben Rivers
This Is My Land, 16mm film to DVD transfer, 2006
This is my Land is a hand-processed portrait of Jake Williams, who lives alone within miles of forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jake always has many jobs on at any one time, finds a use for everything, is an expert mandolin player, and has compost heaps going back many years. He has a different sense of time to most people in the twenty-first Century, which is explicitly expressed in his idea for creating hedges by putting up bird feeders. Rivers comments: ‘It struck me straight away that there were parallels between our ways of working – I have tried to be as self-reliant as possible and be apart from the idea of industry – Jake's life and garden are much the same – he can sustain himself from what he grows and so needs little from others. To Jake this isn’t about nostalgia for some treasured pre-electric past, but more, a very real future. This film was marked the beginning of a series of works exploring people living on the fringes or outside of what is generally termed society – partially instigated by my, possibly misguided, dreams of living in a cabin deep in a forest someday.’

Ben Rivers Biography
Ben Rivers was born in Somerset in 1972. He studied Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art, 1990-93. He has exhibited at many international film festivals and galleries, and won numerous awards, most recently Tiger Award for Short Film, IFF Rotterdam 2008 and Best Film, EXiS, Seoul 2008. He has been the recipient of a number of commissions, including a London Artist’s Film and Video Award, for which he made two new works --Origin of the Species and Ah, Liberty! and Vauxhall Collective commission, for which he recently completed I Know Where I’m Going.

Recent shows include: On Overgrown Paths, Solo Show, Permanent Gallery, Brighton, Nov/Dec 2008; Nought To Sixty, ICA, London, Sept 2008; Syndicate Rokeby, London, Dec 2008; Wild Shapes Cell Project Space, London, Oct/Nov 2008; At The Edge of the World, Solo Show, London Film Festival, Oct 2008; If – People and Places in recent film and video, Bloomberg Space, London, March-May 2008; We Can Not Exist In This World Alone touring two-person show, New Zealand/Australia, 2008. Upcoming shows include solo shows at A Foundation, Liverpool, Sept/Oct 2009 and Picture This, Bristol, Jan/Feb 2010, and An Entangled Bank, group show, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Oct-Dec 2009. Ben Rivers lives and works in London.