Visit to New Contemporaries Exhibition, Nottingham

The New Contemporaries exhibition held in Nottingham this year (2015) was spread across three venues which were actually artists run galleries. The concept of an artists run a gallery is becoming more popular, where a community of say three or more artists get together and rent both studio and gallery space in vacant properties, quite often for what is known as a peppercorn rental, from authorities such as local councils and other property owners, in key parts of the city or town.

The "New Contemporaries" exhibition this year, on the face of it seemed quite small, however when I took into account that it had been spread across three locations, the total number of entries, if held within one gallery space, would actually be quite substantial.

The following works are attributable to and courtesy of the "Backlit Gallery"
Alfred House
Ashley Street
Nottingham NG3 1JG
http://backlit.org.uk/

I found these paintings / illustrations particularly interesting...
 They are both very illustrative, but also somewhat disturbing
in their content, having the smaller format also draws a viewer into them too.

Credit is given to the artists, -  Selected artists for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2015 are:

Sïan Astley, Kevin Boyd, Lydia Brockless, U. Kanad Chakrabarti, James William Collins, Andrei Costache, Julia Curtin, Abri de Swardt, Melanie Eckersley, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Justin Fitzpatrick, Hannah Ford, Sophie Giller, Richard Hards, Juntae T.J. Hwang, Jasmine Johnson, Tomomi Koseki, Hilde Krohn Huse, Pandora Lavender, Jin Han Lee, Hugo López Ayuso, Beatrice- Lily Lorigan, Scott Lyman, Hanqing Ma & Mona Yoo, Scott Mason, Oliver McConnie, Mandy Niewöhner, Hamish Pearch, Neal Rock, Conor Rogers, Katie Schwab, Tim Simmons, David Cyrus Smith, Francisco Sousa Lobo, Aaron Wells, Morgan Wills and Andrea Zucchini.

And further works.....

The idea of the wax William of Orange within the entrance of the exhibition was very curious, which engaged me immediately.  The chosen material, - wax, makes the sculpture very fragile.  This, I believe is  a reflection on the fragility of the political situation at the time when King William was thrown from his horse (here made of wood, - both Wood and Wax were the materials of choice at that historic point in time), through his horse stumbling upon a mole hill.  King William later died of his injury, thus the course of time was changed by a mole hill. ("The wee gentleman in the velvet waistcoat" - as the mole has since been referred as)....

Other works in the Backlit Gallery are are also depicted above.  Overall, out of the three sites visited today, I found this one the best laid out and curated.

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Moving on to the next gallery at "One Thoresby Street"
1 Thoresby Street
Nottingham
NG1 1AJ
http://onethoresbystreet.org/

Artworks on display here were much more contemporary, focussing particularly on Materiality.  I felt though, that some lacked imagination to some extent, as without any explanation of titles, some of the works seemed to lack the polish of the previous collection.

However, this painting by was refreshing...

And then finally to the "Primary Gallery" 

33 Seely Road
Nottingham
NG7 1NU
http://www.weareprimary.org/

The most recognisable works below, painted upon a cigarette box, a beer mat and a condom packet, were of views that might have been made from the location of the object substrates themselves, e.g. on a pavement, (view through a gate bottom); a view of a road gutter; and a public house beer garden, were, in my opinion, very well chosen.

 nothing much new here, - I was reminded of the pots created as a massive series by contemporary artist Edmund De-Wall, and thought that there was little originality to these artifacts, other than the beautiful colour.  I will say however, that the kidney shaped vessel on the bottom right had more appeal than the other objects and their overall layout provided the curiosity factor too.

These works, created from what appear  to be old umbrellas, had much more originality about them.  I was quite intrigued by both how the artist made them and assembled the materials so tightly.  Overall these objects had much more success in engaging me as a spectator.