Exeter Contemporary Open 2014
Sun 26 Nov 9600 - Thu 01 Jan 1970
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Exeter Contemporary Open 2014
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Exeter Contemporary Open 2014
Exeter Contemporary Open is an annual, open submission exhibition that presents work from some of the most exciting emerging and established artists from across the UK and beyond.
The selection panel for this year’s exhibition included Independent Curator and Art Consultant, Ceri Hand, Turner Prize nominated artist David Shrigley and Phoenix Gallery Curator, Matt Burrows.
£1000 Overall Award – Hannah Murgatroyd
£500 Additional Award – Robert Cervera
£200 Audience Choice Award – Lexi Strauss
See installation shots on flickr >>
Born in Barcelona, Robert Cervera lives and works in London. He studied Sculpture at the Royal College of Art and was awarded the 2014 Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor prize for his Masters graduation show. Using photographs, concrete and bodycare products, these works explore encounters (real or imagined) between our bodies and the structures that surround us, particularly physical structures such as walls, enclosures and buildings.
Manchester based Samantha Donnelly’s practice is primarily sculptural. She has a materials-led approach to making, underpinned by references to art history and popular culture – specifically photography, TV, film and advertisements. She has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally.
Andrew Ekins employs a concoction of materials to create works that explore the materiality of painting while investigating the embodiment of contemporary notions of beauty, the abject and the sublime. Often sculptural in their form and formed over time, his paintings embody themes of mortality and decay, growth and renewal.
The focus of Alex Hardy’s work is how we see and understand the world through the prism of language. He applies certain linguistic techniques or processes to particular examples of commonly understood tropes in order to reflect, remove, loop or split language from meaning. Here, he accentuates the formulaic aspects of a television sit-com, rendering it at once familiar and chaotic; hypnotic and repelling.
John Lawrence is a London-based artist who works across a range of media, mining a world of popular culture, imagery and film footage from vast array of sources. Over the past 5 years he has exhibited in London, Bristol, New York, Helsinki and Milan and received awards such as the Merrell Book Prize for Writing and the Landseer Award. Alongside his practice Lawrence organises the touring video/performance project After/Hours/Drop/Box, focusing on music video’s influence on contemporary art.
Spanish artist Gorka Mohameds paintings explore amorphous-forms, serious cartoons and organic geometries. They create an extravagant and enigmatic world in which each painting may suggest many themes, but also remain ambiguous. Here, his almost-portraits create characters out of an accumulation of shapes, forms and objects.
Hannah Murgatroyds work hinges on explorations of an ongoing narrative, in both written and painted forms. Images staged in the setting of an otherworldly country estate, make reference to the history of the body as told through art both high and low. She studied at the Royal College of Art, where she won the Man Drawing Prize in 2005, going on to show in the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2008. She recently returned to the UK after several years living and working in Berlin.
Recently selected for John Moors 2014 and nominated for Saatchi New Sensations, LexiStrauss work subliminally weaves together narratives which explore the idea of individuation and complex human relationships with belief systems.
Exhibition Tour
Sat 4 Oct, 2.30pm, free
An informal tour with the chance to ask questions and discuss the exhibition with others.
See previous exhibition pages:
Exeter Contemporary Open 2012
Exeter Contemporary Open 2013
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