Thursday 14 September 2017 - January 2018

NO PLACE, an exhibition of emerging artists work examining the theme of finding home at Over-Seas House.

Home and travel are two essential elements in our lifestyle – balancing our need to create a strong home identity with the desire to explore and experience adventure and escapism through travel. One element often influences the other. NO PLACE explored the idea of creating a ‘home away from home’, influenced by the Royal Over-Seas League – the members’ club in which it is located. Members’ clubs, especially ROSL, pride themselves on providing the familiar comforts of home within the clubhouse environment.  

But is home a notion or a location? A selection of emerging artists were invited to explore this theme through a range of mediums and viewpoints; investigating displacement, and a sense of place. The artists who were invited to exhibit by BEARSPACE and ROSL ARTS were Lucinda Metcalfe, Dominic Bradnum, Chris Hawtin, Natasha Kissell, Nadja Gabriela Plein and Jane Ward. The varied, contemporary art practices offered fresh perspectives in the historic space of Over-Seas House, where the works in NO PLACE were a welcomed feature of this ‘home from home’ in Central London.

 

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About the artists:
Dominic Bradnum is a visual and audio artist, currently working in Worthing, UK. His painting practice is primarily concerned with capturing the flickering, incandescent qualities of neon lights. Working mainly in oil paint, he builds up layers and glazes, taking advantage of the slow drying times to create subtle changes of tone and contrast. The subject matter of his neon paintings often takes a textual form – poetic statements and enigmatic declarations, translated through a contemporary neon voice, are set within brooding expressionist sea-scapes and post-industrial landscapes. Dominic was the winner of Wells Art Contemporary 2013, he has exhibited throughout the UK and in Europe, sharing gallery space with Sir Peter Blake, Damien Hirst, Bruce McLean and Jamie Hewlett.

Chris Hawtin explores the relationship between organic and cybernetic structures, and the effect of technological acceleration on geographic space. Giant floating machines or vessels hover above a more traditional romantic landscape in a fusion of genres, questioning our relationship to the topographic environment in the era of the digital, and how it has been fictionalised in cinematic and virtual space. The titles of the works and the logic of these fictional arenas suggests the presence of a science fiction narrative for the viewer to unravel. Working with 3d scans and architectural modelling programmes as well as with the painted surface, Hawtin's work becomes a hybrid of the technological and the organic. Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom in 1974 Chris Hawtin has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. His work is in private collections worldwide and in the Saatchi Collection in London.

Natasha Kissell is a painter whose works effuse aspiration and radiate wonderment. Often including modernist architecture, she places highly designed structures into imaginative landscapes. Through man-made structure or the delicate details of the natural world, her paintings depict fantastical landscapes that can only be born out of the imagination. Natasha Kissell studied painting at the Royal Academy schools and then exhibited at the prestigious Art Futures.  She has sown in India, Copenhagen and the States and was a finalist in the Jerwood Contemporary Painters Prize.  Kissell has also undertaken several album cover artwork commissions including 'Black Swan' by Athlete and 'Army of Bones' recent self titled album. Reinventing traditional landscape painting, Kissell discloses whimsical and curious worlds.

Lucinda Metcalfe creates vivid paintings that are inspired by the buildings and environments of travel brochures. Metcalfe's paintings provoke wonder and longing of tropical idylls straight from the pages of Winter Sun. Lucinda Metcalfe studies painting at the Slade School of Art and recently appeared in the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the year show, Metcalfe worked as Artist-in-Residence for Singer/Songwriter Imogen Heap and has shown widely often in contemporary cutting edge venues such as the Urban Outfitters boutique, Nomas Projects and the Pump House Gallery. Lucinda was also selected for New Contemporaries as part of the Liverpool Biennale. She currently teaches Diploma Art in Central London.

Nadja Gabriela Plein has a background in music composition, gaining a doctorate from the Royal College of Music in London before turning to painting. Moving from music to painting, was an organic transition for the artist (like a natural and necessary metamorphosis) and, as such, she sees the process of creating a painting as similar to that of composing a piece of music. She sees the paintings as an improvisation between the materials, the paint, the surface and her own presence and influences at that time combining to create a artwork of movement and dynamics captured in time.  Nadja Gabriela Plein gained a doctorate from the Royal College of Music in composition she won the Mendelssohn Scholarship and has enjoyed her compositions being played internationally.  She is currently enjoying continuing her practice at the acclaimed and newly formed Turps Banana Art School specialising in painting in South East London.

Jane Ward creates meticulously constructed works that employ the artists' own digital photographs repeatedly broken down and collaged, creating images of imaginary, fragmentary, and transient land and cityscapes. Fragments of ink are dissolved by hand, leaving traces of earlier forms and injecting the passage of time via the serene colours of Ward's landscape photographs and the minuscule details that feature foliage, high rise buildings, and flecks of the city. Ward has recently completed a solo exhibition at the Foyles Gallery in Charing Cross, exhibited at Opere Scelte, Turin, Printroom London and had work featured in art shows including London Art Fair and Christie's Multiplied. Recent residencies include: CPS Lisbon, Galeria dos Prazeres, Pedra Sina Residency and No.72 John St. Jane Ward studied an MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 2007 and going on to win the Terrence Conran Foundation Award and the Tim Mara Prize.

BEARSPACE creates a launchpad for visual art, discovering and promoting talent based on technique, quality and imagination for individuals to follow, collect and enjoy. Established in 2003, BEARSPACE is a pioneering art space in London exhibiting award-winning emerging artists who push the boundaries of contemporary art practice. Artists are selected for their response to contemporary culture and philosophy. www.bearspace.co.uk