Blanc Noir

Sarah Doyle, Sophie MacCorquodale, Cathy Lomax,
Stephen Davids, Lydia Maria Julien, Gary O'Connor

13 Oct - 18 Nov 2007
Private View Friday 12 Oct 6-9pm
gallery opening hours Fri - Sun 12-6pm

Transition Gallery
Unit 25a Regent Studios
8 Andrews Road
London E8 4QN
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Blanc Noir was devised by artists Stephen Davids and Cathy Lomax to investigate the significant contribution that the Afro-Caribbean diaspora has made to contemporary British culture. It examines the way that in Britain this culture, rather than being seen as an exotic enclave of otherness is becoming intrinsically meshed within the mainstream.

Blanc Noir features a mixed group of artists who map this process in a counter-intuitive and highly personal way by both overturning and celebrating stereotypes from Sarah Doyle's MySpace girls with hiphop monikers to Cathy Lomax's Afro paintings to Gary O'Connor's Rock Against Racism inspired audio.



Background to Blanc Noir
Hackney in the East End of London is on the front line of an effusive multi-racial mix. It is here that you will find a fusion of cultural energy that is stemmed in a strong black identity born from its well-established black population. As far back as the 1700s the East End has had a tradition of black and white living in harmony, bound together by poverty and outsiderness. This still holds true in today's East End where you find both black and white school kids cherry picking phrases and points of style from black originating music, fashion and patois.

See more images from the Blanc Noir show here on Flickr

Faith

Crossley Gallery, Dean Clough, Halifax
22 September 2007 – 21 January 2008
PV: - Saturday 22 September 12-3pm

Edwin Aitken
Matthew Burrows
Simon Burton
Sarah Doyle
Steve Dutton/Steve Swindells
David Hancock
Thomas Helyar-Carwell
Cathy Ward
Isabel Young

When presenting an exhibition on the theme of faith, as an artist one has to consider what one believes in. Do we believe in the power of the representations of faith in art that have held us enthralled over centuries or is it the power of faith itself that draws an artist to make work? The 10 artists included in this exhibition all question the notions of faith and explore the theme in very different ways.

Some of the artists explore faith in terms of its relevance to the History of Art. Their work may reference a particular religious painting, symbol or object. Thomas Helyar-Cardwell considers how in a society that is increasingly losing its faith, what do these arcane signifiers become when confused or forgotten. These objects gain a new role in his paintings and banners, transforming these symbols into fresh iconography. Similarly David Hancock subverts masterpieces of religious art to make comments upon contemporary society. By working within the tradition of painting he manipulates this loaded genre continuing the discourse on painting’s role within contemporary art. Simon Burton’s paintings are drawn from the pomp and ceremony of war that suggest the idea of a religious crusade. These works draw parallels to past and present conflict and well as include signifiers drawn from art history. Burton depicts a bewildered landscape of ruin where the decimated aftermath of a confliction of abstraction and figuration is expressed through his multi-layered surface. Isabel Young‘s paintings seek to question the traditional hierarchy of the animal kingdom with man at the pinnacle. She re-works this classification through the tradition of icon painting, placing animals in the role of a deity. The use of iridescent paint transmits this ethos by referencing the precious materials used in icon painting, and subsequently notions of importance, power, and status.


Other artists have chosen to discuss what we believe in today. Matthew Burrows’ paintings explore what it means to believe, and in what context it is possible. He unpicks our expectation of science by developing a mythic view of evolution. Through this upended and regressive world Burrows highlights our assumptions that reason has the monopoly on truth and satirises the views of creationists. Edwin Aitken’s paintings attempt to uncover an essential meaning or truth. Through his work he seeks a ‘burden of proof’ that will inevitably validate his own personal faith in painting as a means to express ideas that have an ongoing relevance. In contrast Cathy Ward's installations centre on a childhood incident that contributed in her subsequent loss of faith. Her contribution will be revisiting her departure, both as a reconstruction, and reviewing its many manifestations in her work. For Dutton and Swindells the matter of faith offers the opportunity to make work out of a number of positions simultaneously whilst still believing in all of them. Their videos and wall drawings reference William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" by paying particular attention to the use of inversion and reversal to denote evil. This collaging of disparate elements generates new dialogues for making art. Sarah Doyle consider the roles of contemporary icons and whether they supplant the religious deities of the past. As we desperately try to retain some kind of faith by attaching it to our own heroes, we build our own identity around these superstars who inspire us. The fervour with which we aspire to these role models could also be considered religious, as in Doyle’s work, where she focuses specifically on the phenomenon that is Prince.

Each artist has tackled this theme in a unique and original way and the exhibition hopes to highlight the diversity of current contemporary practise.

O Dreamland

Transition Gallery visits the Seaside this bank holiday weekend with O Dreamland



image: Hall Of Mirrors close up

See more images from O Dreamland here on Flickr

I Love Peckham Shop Windows

30 artists 30 shops
Sarah Doyle is in the nail Shop 'LLC Nails' at 80 Peckham High Street

On display 6 - 12 August 2007
Guided Tours 12 noon, 2pm, 4pm; 11 - 12 August 2007
From Burger King, 52 Peckham High Street, London SE15 5QJ
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'I Love Peckham Shop Windows' is an exhibitions of 30 contemporary artists in Peckham, London SE15. This showcase of site-specific artwork includes emerging and established artists from across the UK and Europe. The artworks have been made in response to the shops and include installation, film performance and design to celebrate Peckham's once 'golden mile'.

I Love Peckham Shop Windows

You can take a look at my work from the Peckham Residency here

Additional events
August 8 - 6pm - Gash Book Launch - Bun House, 96 Peckham High St
August 8 - 8pm - Quiz - Prince Albert, 111 Bellenden Rd

I Love Peckham Shop Windows has been curated by Emily Druiff, Camberwell College of Arts, University of Arts London in partnership with Southwark Council as part of I Love Peckham

Driven

An exhibition in which 32 artists make work about the automobile
curated by Sarah Sparkes

PRIVATE VIEW: Friday, 29 June, 2007, 6-9 pm
EXHIBITION CONTINUES: 30 June - 29 July
GALLERY OPEN: Friday, Saturday & Sunday, 1-6 pm

Fieldgate Gallery
14 Fieldgate Street
E1 1ES
London
map

Press Release:
Few things have had a greater impact on 20th century life and culture than the motor car. In a hundred years or so it has metamorphosed from exotic plaything of the rich to indispensable adjunct to life in all developed societies. Freedom machine, sex symbol, design and status icon, offensive weapon, agent of pollution, devourer of the earth’s resources– it is all of these and more. From the romance of James Dean, Princess Diana, Jackson Pollock, the list goes on ...beautiful machines on the edge of death, to the weekly visit to the supermarket, the car is omnipotent.

‘The more you drive, the less intelligent you are’ states one of the characters in Alex Cox’s cult movie, Repo Man. Driving being seen here as a mindless act in which any intellect is lost when operating an unthinking, unfeeling machine. Maybe, this is the view many of us have from the outside, as a potential ‘road-kill’ victim. However, from the inside as passenger or driver we can become transported into a realm of freedom, the car becoming a vehicle for our aspirations. We can lose our selves inside what Ballard referred to as ‘a huge metallised dream.’ As such, cars become metaphors for otherness, for escape, for our own private space, for the way we imprint our fantasies on life. ‘Like all epochal icons, the car does not mean one thing, but many things. In that sense, it is an ‘empty sign’. It is a vacuum. We fill it with meaning’ - as Allen Samuels states in 'Autopia'

My most vivid early memories are of being driven, lying on my back in the car seeing a blur of trees, buildings, sky, a non-place in which to drift and dream. Later as a young teenager I would goad my father to drive faster and faster, loving the adrenaline rush that the car’s speed induced. That thrill of compressing time and space as a vector of speed became a repository of theory for the likes of Baudrillard and Virillo.Out of this process it is not surprising the car is fetishised, and it is not difficult to see why artists love cars. They are sculptural objects. A drive
in a car takes us on a visual journey, quite literally altering our perspective on life. The form they describe. The noise they make. The marks they leave. The car can evoke both nostalgia and the future.

Despite living in an age when the car has become demonised as polluter of the planet, I have to confess a love of driving - it is our dirty secret, as in the 21st Century it becomes a forbidden pleasure - gridlock permitting. With that in mind, ‘Driven’ is a group show that concentrates on the psychological hit that cars can deliver. Through the way they transport us into imagined worlds this exhibition aims to address something of this complex relationship.

The Driven artists are:

Sarah Baker, Helen Barff, Paul Caton, Ami Clarke, Leigh Clarke, Cedric Christie, Andrew Cross, Mikey Cuddihy, Robert Currie, Sarah Doyle, James R Ford, Adrian Galpin, Nigel Grimmer, Alexis Harding, David Hopkinson, Marq Kearey, John Kindness, Tim Knowles, David Leapman, Jennifer Merrell, Lee Maelzer, Dan McDermott, Leila Miller, Jessica Potter, Benedict Radcliffe, DJ Roberts, Amy Robins, Colin Smith, Sarah Sparkes, Axel Stockburger, Heidi Stokes, Ben Woodeson

SPECIAL EVENTS:

-- 'First Thursdays' - the gallery will be open on Thursday, 5 July, 6 - 9 pm, and Mikey Cuddihy will read her new story 'Dinner at the Drive In Movies' at 7.30 pm

-- 'Driven by Cars' - Friday, 27 July, 6 - 9 pm. Artist film night and talk, curated by Ricarda Vidal

The Nexus Treatment

June 1st - July 15th 2007
Open Evening 8th 6:30 - 8:30

Space Station Sixty-Five
65 North Cross Road
London
SE22 9ET
map

Press Release:
The Nexus Treatment
A Space Station Sixty-Five Window Project

Diamonds are forever ...
Seen through these St. Laurent glasses
And I’ve realized that I’ve arrived...
Kanye West, from Late Registration

In the crystalline animated world of Sarah Doyle “The Nexus Treatment” whirls and sparkles forever and ever. Counter intuitively utilising a hand made methodology,and consciously eschewing technological processes Doyle has crafted a Victorianesque hall of mirrors, with images taken from popular culture.

In the often rarefied realm of pedantic high art Doyle’s constituency is a revolutionary one She passionately and precisely studies and reveals the complex codes of young teenagers. Trawling through outdated hip hop videos, talking to and working with her younger siblings she identifies the “watch me now” shapes and movements which signify a universal need to belong, to be part of a group to fit in and to show off.

Doyle’s appropriation of this world, however, is no cheap holiday, there is an immersion and identification with it which goes back to her own experience of arriving in England as a teenager having been brought up in Africa. Unaware of the prevailing popular culture signifiers, references to TV shows, and imperceptible shifts in style she found herself to be “uncool” an outsider.

Her work meshes this yearning to belong, with a magical kaleidescopia of desire. The looped hand drawn images revealed in the facets of the spinning jeweled mirrors, when cut from their original meaning, take on a hypnotic quality. Like tarnished ballerinas on the top of a music box, Doyle’s tough girls dance for eternity in their strangely compelling cabinet of curiosities.

The Nexus Treatment is based on the title of a salon sign Doyle found near her home in South London. When googled, Doyle was amazed to find that it was revealed to be “an organization that designs and operates treatment programs for a wide range of child and adolescent problems” and it was also “a conditioning treatment used on Afro hair to make it more silky and straight like Caucasian hair” Both meanings strangely reverberated with the artist’s work. “I really liked the name” says Doyle “ it sounded futuristic and with the nexus meaning the center of focus it fitted with the work I had in mind”

Mixing futuristic elements and contemporary cultural references with clunky hobbyesue machinery, The Nexus Treatment signposts not only novel methods of art production but also introduces new places from where that work can be made.
Alex Michon


Sarah Doyle’s previous work has used other forms of dead media such as using records to create drawing tools. She is currently studying the phenomena of “Ragdoll Jewellery” a type of expensive jewellery worn by people who are not from wealthy backgrounds.
A graduate of Central St Martins, Doyle has shown internationally in Japan and recently at the Michael Jackson gallery in Germany. Her recent animation work was shown at the Whitechapel gallery as part of the Late Nights Programmed/Penned in the Margins. She was part of Splashdown for Space Station Sixty-Five during the Whitstable Biennale 2006 and will be undertaking a commission for Space Station Sixty-Five during 2008.
Sarah Doyle lives and works in London.

Alex Michon is an artist and writer. She is director of Transition Gallery. She writes for Garageland, and is the editor of Arty and Critical Friend. She is currently writing a 'rockabilly stitch-up' about her time working with Bernard Rhodes and The Clash.

Whitechapel Late Nights

MAY 3RD at THE WHITECHAPEL GALLERY, E1 www.whitechapel.org

Special Writing/Visual Arts Show from 7pm. FREE.
Artist Sarah Doyle has collaborated with writer Amy Prior to create a innovative, unique piece where spoken words from their new book and sound meet with new hand-drawn animation: Bradferjerlina. New Tzadik signing Pamelia Kurstin provides an original soundtrack using the theremin (Commission for Whitechapel Late Nights Programme/Penned in the Margins)

*'I Can't Believe How Great I Feel' is a new limited edition book that combines a short story by Amy Prior with original artwork by Sarah Doyle. The book is a creative transformation of the story's trashy inspiration: the tabloid press and bad Hollywood blockbuster movies. Their work is especially inspired by extensive, conflicting but supposedly 'true-life' articles about the private lives of several well-known Hollywood actors - and also (interchangeably) by some of the similar fictional characters they play in Hollywood film. For a year Amy and Sarah gathered more than a hundred celebrity magazines, hung out in chain video stores and multiplex cinemas they never normally visited, scanned obsessive film fan sites online. Sarah made drawings; Amy worked with some of these - and also magazine photos, movie stills and dialogue, small 'true life' details from articles, quotes from interviews - to help her imagine a fictional story. The book is the result: a glamorous 'object d'art' that takes celebrity onto a new level.

Nog Gallery Animations

I have an animation (featuring this guy above) playing at this show on Thursday 26th April:

VERY SPECIAL SHOW ON THURSDAY!

Get Advance Tickets, be there early...will be busy!

THURSDAY APRIL 26TH at NOG GALLERY, 182 Brick Lane, E1

Text-based UPSET THE RHYTHM (www.upsettherhythm.co.uk) show from 8pm
ADVANCE TICKETS from www.wegottickets.com (£3)

BARR
AMY PRIOR
PAMELIA KURSTIN
JO ROBERTSON
DJ FRANCES MAY MORGAN

BARR
BARR is the project of LA's wandering pop-dynamo Brendan Fowler, in which he half-sings over half-tunes, creating a set of confessional songs that challenge the listener's preconceptions of truly inventive music. Brendan's second full length 'Summary' is out now on Upset The Rhythm and is his darkest and most complex yet. Holding impassioned and articulate dialogues over deceptively simple, yet emotionally disarming melodies, formed from a sparse arrangement of bass, drums, piano and sometimes xylophone, he produces candid and exploratory songs about love, absence, realisation and personal politics. Returning to the UK for the third time, Brendan has dispensed with his iPod and will instead be backed by a full live band, featuring Ethan Swan and Corey Dieckman on piano and bass, and Kevin Shea (of Storm & Stress and Talibam!) on drums.
www.barrbarr.com | www.myspace.com/barrbarr

AMY PRIOR
London-based Amy Prior writes stories that appear on both sides of the Atlantic, often in books and sometimes galleries, though she was first published in music fanzines. Her fiction has appeared alongside pieces by other writers who also cross borders into music and visual arts, showing with work by writer/musician Sara Jaffe (ex-Erase Erata) and visual arts-linked Trinie Dalton from LA on a recent U.S. tour. For this text-based event Amy will use two of her new fictional pieces in the galleries. '(The Story), Morning Glory' is written in response to cover version of a Daniel Johnston song and recently appeared as a dazzlingly visual record insert for a 7" single (designed by Kate Moross). 'I Can‚t Believe How Great I Feel' is her new book, with drawings by artist Sarah Doyle, that creatively transforms trashy tabloids and bad Hollywood movies. The result: two innovative gallery pieces where words meet music, projected animation and some performance. New Tzadik signing Pamelia Kurstin provides an original soundtrack using the theremin, while new Textile Records-signing and painter Jo Robertson plays a short solo set in the gallery.
Additional soundtracking by Joe Zeitlin.
Frances May Morgan (Plan B Magazine) plays records.
Amy Prior

SOUND:
Jo Robertson
Pamelia Kurstin
Joe Zeitlin

VISUAL:
Sarah Doyle
Kate Moross

Sobriquets

Some of the Sobriquets girls will be in the show at Micheal Jackson's Gallery in Germany you can also make friends with them here...

Lange Gasse 28, Augsburg, Germany.

"Feel Good Feel Bad Boys And Girls" will have it's private view on 30th March 2007.

Lil Souljah



Lady Diamond



Thug Angel



Lil Ruthless



Queen Bossy



Ms Divalicious



Princess Ice



Lil Lady Spectacular



Lil Ruthless

Feel Good Feel Bad Boys And Girls

“FEEL GOOD FEEL BAD BOYS AND GIRLS”

"Feel Good Feel Bad Boys And Girls" will have it's private view on 30th March 2007.
Curated by Michael Jackson
Michael Jackon is above saying hello in front of his painting "paradise" from a recent show called "Light Sentence"

Lange Gasse 28, Augsburg, Germany.
Private View: 30th March 18:30 till late
30th March - 14th April 2007
Opening times: Fri, Sat und Sun 12:00 – 18:00

James Robert Ford, Daisy Clarke, Stella Vine, Sarah Doyle, Rebecca Gould, Juergen Brugger, Angelika Brehm, Nicole Tschampel

Press Release

Childhood, disturbed, random, belief, power (Daisy Clarke)

Faith, quotidian accumulations, magic, ghosts and cycles (Nicole Tschampel)

MY FARTS SMELL LIKE DEATH (James Robert Ford)

Childlike, provocative, romantic, autobiographical, desire (Stella Vine)

Sobriquets, Identity, Peer pressure, Codes, Attitude (Sarah Doyle)

Candy Floss, punch and judy, popular culture, low budget production
and the silent movie (Rebecca Gould)

Farbe, Natur, Fantasie, Träume, Freude (Angelica Brehm)

LENI, LENI, LENI, LENI, LENI. (Juergen Brugger)

I Can't Believe How Great I Feel Update

Heres some more information about the book I Can't Believe How Great I Feel with a list of forthcoming events for the book.

A new book by writer Amy Prior with drawings by artist Sarah Doyle in a very special numbered edition of 500
Published by JUNCTURE in March 2007 (ISBN 978-0-9554957-0-0)
The book is designed in collaboration with design collective Åbäke
Distribution in the U.K., U.S., Europe and Japan via selected independent and gallery bookstores

**********************************************************************
'I Can't Believe How Great I Feel' is a new beautiful limited edition book that combines a short story by Amy Prior with original artwork by Sarah Doyle. The book is an artistic transformation of the story's trashy inspiration: the tabloid press and bad Hollywood blockbuster movies.

Their work is especially inspired by extensive, conflicting but supposedly 'true-life' articles about the private lives of several well-known Hollywood actors - and also (interchangeably) by some of the similar fictional characters they play in Hollywood film.

For a year Amy and Sarah gathered more than a hundred celebrity magazines, hung out in chain video stores and multiplex cinemas they never normally visited, scanned obsessive film fan sites online. Sarah made drawings; Amy worked with some of these - and also magazine photos, movie stills and dialogue, small 'true life' details from articles, quotes from interviews - to help her imagine a fictional story.

This book is the result: a glamorous 'object d'art' that takes celebrity onto a new level.

**********************************************************************
LONDON EVENTS FOR THIS BOOK:

JANUARY 7TH at CURZON SOHO
(Preview: Short documentary about the book - including music by DJ /Rupture. Showing as part of week-long film festival at the Curzon Soho/I.C.A. - www.shortfilms.org.uk
Film programme screens 1.30-4pm, then readings from the book as part of the festival 'Afternoon of Performance and Music' from 4-6pm)
APRIL 21ST at THE SMALL PRESS FAIR
(Old Castle St, E1)
MAY 3RD at THE WHITECHAPEL GALLERY
(Special Writing/Visual Arts Show)
JUNE at THE SPITZ
(Commission for The Festival of Word)
NOVEMBER at THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS (ICA)

**********************************************************************
BOOK NOW ON SALE IN LONDON AT:
ICA, The Mall, SW1
Artwords, 65a Rivington St, EC2
Bookart Bookshop, 17 Pitfield St, N1
The Grand OFR, Truman Brewery, E1
Nog Gallery, 182 Brick Lane E1

On sale at selected gallery bookshops and independent bookstores in North America, Europe and Japan from April 07.

or you can buy the book online now by clicking here:

Critical Friend 6

My work and the show Celebrated Sobriquets is reviewed by Alex Michon in the current issue of the Critical Friend


Critical Friend is a collection of reviews by artists.

Issue 6 (Winter 2007) also includes reviews of:

Andrea Buttner Tolzblock at Rachmaninoffs by Rachel Potts
Tintagel Residency by Jan Frith
Give me Shelter at Union by Caroline Higgs
Maria Marshall at F A Projects by Emily Candela
Gustavo Ciriaco & Andrea Sonnberger at Liverpool Biennial by Helen Kaplinsky
USA Today at The Royal Academy by Olly Beck & Mike Bartlett
Expo 2006 in Nottingham by Matt Roberts
Pat O'Connor at Ashwin Street by Cathy Lomax
Billy Childish at The Aquarium by Ronald Gunnar-Hoo
The Barcelona Art Scene by Olly Beck
Sarah Doyle's Celebrated Sobriquets at The Surgery by Alex Michon
The Turner Prize by Rachel Potts
Latitude at The Fieldgate Gallery by Didi Lin
Dynamic Entropy at Houldsworth by Charlie Potter
Extenuating Circumstances at Grey Area by Mike Bartlett
Richard Crow by Esther Planas
Annabel Dover's Oriole at Transition Gallery by Mike Bartlett


The Critical Friend 6 costs £1.50 and is available to buy at:
Transition Gallery - 25a Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, London E8
The ICA Bookshop - The Mall, London SW1
London Art - 132 Finchley Road, London NW3


And also online here:
Buy the Critical Friend 6 online

So Sad

The So Sad show opened on Saturday Russell Herron has written about the private view in his blog

The theme of the exhibition is sadness, or being sad.

The show closes on the 27th Jan 2007

The image above is a still from my animation in the show "Opheliyah". I did manage to get it to play eventually, phew.

Here is Deborah Orr's review of the show in the Independent

The Guy Hilton Gallery
35 Fournier Street
E1
map

Contributing are:
Mark McGowan, Brian Catling, Will Self, Sarah Doyle, Bob and Roberta Smith, Centre of Attention, Richard Dedomenici, JJ Charlesworth, The Fucks, Stella Vine, Sacha Craddock, Marcia Farqhuar, Andrew Hunt, Jessica Voorsanger and Harry Pye.

Nearest Tube: Liverpool Street, Shoreditch Station