Separations considered the ways in which we engage with our environment, and how these experiences can be projected back into it as art. Based in a disused factory space, the exhibition was contextualised in the regeneration area of Holbeck; the birthplace of the industrial revolution in Leeds. The exhibition featured nine new installations by visual artists working in Northern England. The exhibition was facilitated and curated by Victoria Lucas and colleague Andy Broadey. Separations 67-71 Bath Road, Holbeck, LS11 9UA Saturday 31st May - Thursday 12th June 2008 Gallery is open to the public Tuesday - Saturday 12-5pm Private View Friday 30th May 5-8pm Andy Broadey Building an Image, 2008 Mixed Media ‘To articulate oneself, one must conceive of oneself, yet to conceive of one’s self, is itself, already a form of structured articulation’. Throughout history artists have sought a form of self-comprehension through the production of and engagement with artworks. These were Barnett Newman’s expressed aims for his work, and Building an Image explores Broadey’s own sense of self-awareness before two of Newman’s paintings, Adam and Eve. This exploration situates Broadey’s own desire for self-comprehension, using his encounter with Newman’s work to explore the structuring of his own sense of self. Nick Cass Sketches after Cimabue, 2008 Fablon on paper. From his interest in perspective, Cass has being fascinated by Renaissance images such as Cimabue’s frescoes, in Italy’s Chapel of St Francis in Assisi. In c1280 Cimabue depicted the destinations of the Evangelists as largely imaginary cities; attempting to use a realistic sense of space to depict far away places. Leeds is now imagining and developing a new city, redeveloping areas such as Holbeck; the centre of Leeds’ early textile trade. St Francis came from a textile family and Holbeck itself has architectural elements inspired by the landscapes of Italy. Appropriately, Cass takes inspiration from Italy and creates his own versions of Cimabue’s cities, suggesting the complex physical and emotional relationship we have with the spaces we inhabit. Kelly Cumberland Strachybotrys Atra [wd3], 2008 Oxide Black Pigment - Please be careful not to get Black Oxide on Clothing Strachybotrys Atra [wd3] explores the change and removal, growth and deterioration of the life and nature of a fungus. The three wall-drawings adopt the guise of the existing black mould to quietly infiltrate the space, demonstrating how something seemingly delicate and insubstantial can overwhelm its environment. Mike Ferguson Holbeck Drip, 2008 Mixed Media Ferguson presents a site-specific installation inspired by the building’s flaws. The leak in the roof is recreated through the use of a pump, appearing to drop from underneath the mezzanine. This drip lands onto discarded objects such as car bumpers and old drainpipes, which were found on the wasteland adjacent to the building. The objects have been placed and hung in such a way that the drip is carefully controlled. Each object re-directs the flow of the water, creating a journey, in and around the fabric of the space. Victoria Lucas Fragments, 2008 Video Installation – Please do not walk in or amongst the wires, they are part of the installation Through metaphorical representations, the medium of video is used to present the ephemeral nature of existence against the passage of time. Concentrating on various minutiae in the exhibition space, Lucas captures junctures that have already transpired within the surrounding building. The fragmented moments are installed in conjunction with the surrounding architecture, each film relating visually to the next. Susan Massey Series: From the Hollow, 2008 Mixed Media Massey presents the viewer with an assemblage of materials salvaged from waste-ground near to the exhibition space. Her work makes use of ‘found’ objects and detritus that surrounds us in our everyday lives. Most of Massey’s sculpture arrives from an intuitive response to materials by adopting an ‘openness to chance’; thus the criteria employed when choosing the objects can be fairly random. The work often conveys a moment of collapse, or a sense of something being makeshift or provisional. Ruth Scott Blacking, 2008 Drawing based Performance Blacking explores the relationship between drawing and space; examining drawing as a performative act. It questions further the alliance of the body and movement through drawing and sound. Scratching black chalk directly onto the wall over a four-hour period will transform this once white space, obliterating any sense of past activity. Phil Slocombe Beck, 2008 Video Installation Meanwood, Wyke, Holbeck. Special guest appearances [on camera]: Pied Wagtail (2), Mallard Duck (2), unidentified flies (?); [off camera] King Fisher, Grey Heron, Brown Trout. Phil Slocombe uses the medium of digital video to produce moving landscapes, which depict man-made constructions attempting to control the subversive forces of nature. Beck depicts three small streams as their original meandering paths are turned into brick lined drains and outflows; ending up passing by the city in manufactured gullies tucked out of sight, in a bleak regimented watercourse. Andrew Warstat Folding (Crumpled) 1 & 2, 2008 Photography Folding (Crumpled) is part a series of photographs depicting sheets of folded and crumpled paper. These photographs of paper do a number of things to the viewer. Initially, the images force the viewer to look closely. The spectator sees the photograph both as a surface image and as a physical thing. These pictures also make the viewer aware of their own complicity in the process of perceiving the object and image.