Before The Silence: Incubation Gallery,
OPENED 6th May – 31st July 2008
Liverpool Curator Tony Knox brings 3 artists, Anna McDade, Darren Beatty and Carol Menzies, all from different disciplines to the new show at the Incubation Gallery, situated at the new £15 million pound Media Factory building Preston.
Anna McDade’s work explores the fusion of Eastern and Western art styles, including Graffiti Art, Anime and the ‘Superflat’ movement (Murakame). ‘After The Silence’ is a series of digital works exploring the birth of a new world after a terrible cataclysm; They are a reflection of real events experienced by the artist, but retold to express emotional perceptions in a succession of visual metaphors. They are a celebration of the realisation that from great tragedy can spring infinite renewal and rebirth: it is merely a question of an individual’s personal choice to recognise and embrace the positive as well as the negative in every situation.
Darren Beatty’s art work revolves around the questioning of images. Beatty’s interest is in the ambiguous nature of perception and representation, along with “tensions” between objective and subjective “picture making”. His intention is not to be overtly political, regarding specific issues such as the war in Iraq, but instead using imagery as a signifier of events from a broader historical period and therefore commenting more objectively.
Carol Menzies’ photographic images are a new abstracted series of jellyfish. These Embryos of Light are convulsing, dancing and floating structures within the unnatural environment of an aquarium. Lit by a single neon strip the jellyfish movement is restricted within this entombment. This organism is one of the oldest forms of life on earth, displayed for the voyeuristic pleasures of the public as they glare though the glass to another world.