Art & Exhibitions

Transition 9 exhibition at The Exchange gallery in Penzance (preview)

21st January 2010

A spirit of artistic experimentation will reign at The Exchange gallery in Penzance over the coming four weeks, when artists try out their ideas before the inquisitive eyes of visitors.

The large exhibition space will serve as a laboratory for all sorts of wacky ideas during Transition, the Newlyn Art Gallery project now in its ninth year.

Each week the gallery will play host to a new clutch of artists receptive to the idea of their work taking off in new directions, with visitors invited to comment on work in progress.

Work ranges from paintings in progress to more esoteric performance art, like the “social sculptures” being created by Scott Daniels and Bryony Gillard in week three, pictured bottom.

Each day, Scott and Bryony will be creating what they are calling “social sculptures”, altering the furniture and props for a different group of people each afternoon.

This might be senior citizens one day and teenagers the next, with the older visitors asked to suggest what props and furniture they should provide for the teenagers. The art comes in what this reveals.

“They might say provide a huge ashtray so they can stub their fags out, which could be spot on or could be wildly off the mark,” says gallery curator Blair Todd.

“That is the wild card, not knowing what their perceptions will be.”

Cornish abstract artist Anthony Bryant, meanwhile, is welcoming the chance to hang, and work on, his huge White Series, in which he is experimenting with extremely fluid oil paint, mainly in white.

“Anthony has a very small studio and a huge number of paintings and he’s never hung them a large space before,” Blair says.

“This series of paintings is a new departure for him, because he’s always done these rich, densely-coloured works before. This is a chance for him to hang his work and get feedback.”

Dean Knight, meanwhile, will be manipulating props and lighting to create scenes within “an inflatable Wendy house painted black” which suggest the presence of a strangely absent person.

Dominick Allen and Timothy Crowley will conduct experiments in which ageing computers attempt to communicate with modified and hand-built sound devices, inviting visitors to press buttons and turn dials.

In the final week, visual artist Ken Barrett will be creating huge billboard paintings of the late ukulele-playing George Formby, pictured top.

Visitors will be invited to share memories of the entertainer who helped to keep wartime Britain smiling, as well as taking part in a ukulele singalong to banish the present day gloom of the recession.

Transition 9 runs from January 26 to February 20 at The Exchange, Penzance. Visit www.theexchangegallery.co.uk or call 01736 363715. The gallery is closed on Sundays and Mondays.

SARAH PITT

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