Speculative fiction :-
A genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world: parallel dimensions, dystopian visions, alternate universes.
As a response to the profligacies of the real world, these six exciting artists came together to reveal their own unique alternate worlds…each shot through with something peculiar, surreal, sexy, anarchic, twisted or subversive. All share a passion for highly-skilled drawing.
A genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world: parallel dimensions, dystopian visions, alternate universes.
As a response to the profligacies of the real world, these six exciting artists came together to reveal their own unique alternate worlds…each shot through with something peculiar, surreal, sexy, anarchic, twisted or subversive. All share a passion for highly-skilled drawing.
Artists:
Delphine Lebourgeois | Georgia Kitty Harris | Gordon Glyn-Jones
Jenny Timmer | Michael Henley | Peter Mammes
Exhibition: 13-15 November 2020
Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens St, London EC1V 1NQ
Delphine Lebourgeois | Georgia Kitty Harris | Gordon Glyn-Jones
Jenny Timmer | Michael Henley | Peter Mammes
Exhibition: 13-15 November 2020
Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens St, London EC1V 1NQ
Artist Biographies
Georgia Kitty Harris
https://www.instagram.com/georgiakittyharris/
Georgia Kitty Harris is a London born artist with a printmaking MA from the Royal College of Art and a BA in Fine Art from Kingston. She is an artist who struggles with succinct summaries, which is reflected in the repetition in her work. Moving from theme to theme and obsession to obsession; any subject matter will be drawn, printed, etched and scribbled again and again until some sense has been brought out of a series. In this show she’s showing drawings from the casebooks of patients from British mental asylums around the turn of the 20th century. The faces reflect not only the ravages of mental health but exhibited as a collective serve as an unsettling reminder that our own sanity and ‘reality’ is none but a fragile construct.
Michael Henley
http://michaelhenleyart.co.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/michaelhenleyart/
Michael Henley is a london based artist whose work deals primarily with combining organic elements and geometric shapes. Henley is concerned with the internal and the organic forms that exist in the natural world. He combines these extensive research images with a strict geometric frame to attempt to ‘control’ and subvert each image as its re-worked and layered to add to the ever increasing distortion element to each piece.
Working with a mixture of graphite, Indian ink & gold leaf Henley experiments with these materials along with lighting in select pieces to create the ‘right’ balance of details against layering and lighting to progress his art from piece to piece. Henley has exhibited at numerous galleries and art fairs across the UK and New York. The work hint at worlds within worlds, sometimes dark, often disturbing, but aalways mesmeric.
Peter Mammes
https://patterndiscord.com/ https://www.instagram.com/petermammes/
Peter Mammes was born in 1986 in Krugersdorp in Transvaal (Gauteng) province, South Africa and is now based in London. Peter has had several solo exhibitions around South Africa and was mentored by Dianne Victor through the Lizamore Gallery in their mentorship program in 2016. Already gaining a considerable reputation in South Africa, he recently moved to the UK on an ‘Extraordinary Talent Visa’ (normally reserved for game changing scientists or academics).
Peter has travelled extensively, and the influences and imagery of places such as Varanasi, India, Moscow, Russia and most recently in 2018 in Cairo can be seen in his work. Peter has pioneered and experimented with many techniques but currently prefers drawing with a paintbrush and ink. The palpable tension between the vibrant colours, mastery of line and the stark imagery result in pieces that are transcendent of reality and at the same time seem to ask raw ciseral questions of the viewer.
Delphine Lebourgeois
www.delphinelebourgeois.com www.instagram.com/delphinelebourgeois/
Delphine Lebourgeois studied Fine Art in Lyon then went on to complete a Masters in Illustration at Central St Martins in 2005. She works in various mediums including digital, collage, pencil, pen, ink, watercolour and screen prints with drawing at the core of her practice.
Recent works draw from various stylistic sources (ranging from Botticelli to comics) mixing symbols and cultural references in a playful and sometimes irreverent way whilst questioning Illustrative and Fine Art traditions. She has collaborated with major newspapers including The New Yorker, the Guardian, L'Obs and Le Monde. Her work is shown internationally including in Europe, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. Delphine’s work draws on the narrative qualities of illustration to create an entirely unique world; subversive, often erotic and always shot through with an edgy empowering humour.
Jenny Timmer
www.jennytimmerart.com/
Jenny’s work stems from a childhood in the primitive African bush and is further informed through interests in the common neurology of Homo Sapiens. Her reading of psychology, archaeology, ethnography and anthropology posits a contemporary response of a non-scientific mind to the marvels and vagaries of the natural world and the formation of cultures. She creates objects by recycling or using natural materials which are normally set in installations to evoke mystery and magic. This work is a slight departure in that the objects stand alone; however the use of vegetation and natural forms evoke alchemy and transformation.
Gordon Glyn-Jones
http://www.gordonglyn-jones.com www.instagram.com/gordonglynjones/
Now London based, Gordon was born in Zimbabwe and studied fine art at Michaelis Art School at the University of Cape Town. After a career in arts journalism returned to dedicated art production. His latest project encompassed a rigorous practice of creating and sharing a daily drawing to instagram for a sustained period; the most recent of which was 180 days.
The resultant work is intentionally non-representational, but establishes a unique visual language, which hints at parallel universes, living creatures, fantastical landscapes and peculiar forms that are paradoxically alien and hauntingly familiar. As a response to a world where we are bombarded with imagery that serves set narratives, ideologies or consumerist agendas, he sets out to create a fertile ground which invites the viewer to intuitively respond to bring their own creative reading to the work.
Georgia Kitty Harris
https://www.instagram.com/georgiakittyharris/
Georgia Kitty Harris is a London born artist with a printmaking MA from the Royal College of Art and a BA in Fine Art from Kingston. She is an artist who struggles with succinct summaries, which is reflected in the repetition in her work. Moving from theme to theme and obsession to obsession; any subject matter will be drawn, printed, etched and scribbled again and again until some sense has been brought out of a series. In this show she’s showing drawings from the casebooks of patients from British mental asylums around the turn of the 20th century. The faces reflect not only the ravages of mental health but exhibited as a collective serve as an unsettling reminder that our own sanity and ‘reality’ is none but a fragile construct.
Michael Henley
http://michaelhenleyart.co.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/michaelhenleyart/
Michael Henley is a london based artist whose work deals primarily with combining organic elements and geometric shapes. Henley is concerned with the internal and the organic forms that exist in the natural world. He combines these extensive research images with a strict geometric frame to attempt to ‘control’ and subvert each image as its re-worked and layered to add to the ever increasing distortion element to each piece.
Working with a mixture of graphite, Indian ink & gold leaf Henley experiments with these materials along with lighting in select pieces to create the ‘right’ balance of details against layering and lighting to progress his art from piece to piece. Henley has exhibited at numerous galleries and art fairs across the UK and New York. The work hint at worlds within worlds, sometimes dark, often disturbing, but aalways mesmeric.
Peter Mammes
https://patterndiscord.com/ https://www.instagram.com/petermammes/
Peter Mammes was born in 1986 in Krugersdorp in Transvaal (Gauteng) province, South Africa and is now based in London. Peter has had several solo exhibitions around South Africa and was mentored by Dianne Victor through the Lizamore Gallery in their mentorship program in 2016. Already gaining a considerable reputation in South Africa, he recently moved to the UK on an ‘Extraordinary Talent Visa’ (normally reserved for game changing scientists or academics).
Peter has travelled extensively, and the influences and imagery of places such as Varanasi, India, Moscow, Russia and most recently in 2018 in Cairo can be seen in his work. Peter has pioneered and experimented with many techniques but currently prefers drawing with a paintbrush and ink. The palpable tension between the vibrant colours, mastery of line and the stark imagery result in pieces that are transcendent of reality and at the same time seem to ask raw ciseral questions of the viewer.
Delphine Lebourgeois
www.delphinelebourgeois.com www.instagram.com/delphinelebourgeois/
Delphine Lebourgeois studied Fine Art in Lyon then went on to complete a Masters in Illustration at Central St Martins in 2005. She works in various mediums including digital, collage, pencil, pen, ink, watercolour and screen prints with drawing at the core of her practice.
Recent works draw from various stylistic sources (ranging from Botticelli to comics) mixing symbols and cultural references in a playful and sometimes irreverent way whilst questioning Illustrative and Fine Art traditions. She has collaborated with major newspapers including The New Yorker, the Guardian, L'Obs and Le Monde. Her work is shown internationally including in Europe, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. Delphine’s work draws on the narrative qualities of illustration to create an entirely unique world; subversive, often erotic and always shot through with an edgy empowering humour.
Jenny Timmer
www.jennytimmerart.com/
Jenny’s work stems from a childhood in the primitive African bush and is further informed through interests in the common neurology of Homo Sapiens. Her reading of psychology, archaeology, ethnography and anthropology posits a contemporary response of a non-scientific mind to the marvels and vagaries of the natural world and the formation of cultures. She creates objects by recycling or using natural materials which are normally set in installations to evoke mystery and magic. This work is a slight departure in that the objects stand alone; however the use of vegetation and natural forms evoke alchemy and transformation.
Gordon Glyn-Jones
http://www.gordonglyn-jones.com www.instagram.com/gordonglynjones/
Now London based, Gordon was born in Zimbabwe and studied fine art at Michaelis Art School at the University of Cape Town. After a career in arts journalism returned to dedicated art production. His latest project encompassed a rigorous practice of creating and sharing a daily drawing to instagram for a sustained period; the most recent of which was 180 days.
The resultant work is intentionally non-representational, but establishes a unique visual language, which hints at parallel universes, living creatures, fantastical landscapes and peculiar forms that are paradoxically alien and hauntingly familiar. As a response to a world where we are bombarded with imagery that serves set narratives, ideologies or consumerist agendas, he sets out to create a fertile ground which invites the viewer to intuitively respond to bring their own creative reading to the work.