MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM FCA&C!!!

Rebecca Wilson

Rebecca Wilson, You Tart!, 2009, photo copyright Rebecca Wilson

Rebecca Wilson, Only the Best; Tarts and Floozies, 2009, photo copyright Rebecca Wilson

Rebecca Wilson, Fab, 2009, photo copyright Rebecca Wilson & Chris Park

Rebecca Wilson

The boundaries, if there really were any, between craft, design and fine art are disappearing in Rebecca’s work. Choosing ceramic as both the material and subject, Rebecca aims to breathe new life into abandoned and forgotten everyday objects by making playful and ironic changes to the inherent properties of the objects, and combining precious porcelain with incidental materials such as jelly, chocolate and paper. Many of the re-born art objects explore our emotional cravings for food and how these interact with our other physical and emotional desires.

Holds a MA Ceramics from University of Wales Institute, Cardiff and a BDes (Hons) in Ceramics from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee, Rebecca is based at the Coburg House Studios, Edinburgh. Her exhibitions include: 'Collect 2009', The Saatchi Gallery, London; 'In The Window', Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool; 'Telling Tales', The Beetroot Tree, Derbyshire; RSA Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.

You Tart!
porcelain & bone china; 30x23x20cm; 2009

Only the Best; Tarts and Floozies
porcelain; 10-15cm each; 2009

As part of the ‘Eat Me Keep Me’ series, the works focus on the notion of self-indulgence. Made from decadent-looking porcelain, these ‘tart ladies’ have been given titles inspired by marketing slogans, to encourage people to look at their vanity and how easily they are seduced by current commercial campaigns. The connections between food and our other desires also lead us to being enticed by the notion of food as a luxury, an indulgence, something a little bit naughty, so Rebecca says: ‘Why not? Go on, treat yourself!’


Fab
photographs; TBC; 2009

Remember those 3-layer ice lollies called ‘Fabs’? This series of photographs stars the Fab ice lolly. The process of melting a tart lady cast in ice cream and chocolate – Fab-style - was documented by Rebecca and photographer Chris Park in a old-fashioned café setup. The sweetness in the picture gets stronger, warmer and stickier as the figure disappears, leaving nothing more than a pool of creamy liquid.
Photographer Chris Park

Find out more in the Artist's and Photographer's website links on the right!!

Alex Wilde

Alex Wilde, Broth Mix, 2009, photo copyright Alex Wilde

Alex Wilde
Alex’s works cannot be described simply by their media or dimensions. She has been working on different socially engaged art projects and has developed an interest in how food relates to the sharing and exchange of information and views. She co-produced the very popular project ‘Broth Mix’ with art critic Leigh French in the Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow in 2007, where community spaces were turned into a free vegetarian cafe & platform for the sharing of food, ideas, seeds and produce. She continues to bring the concept of Broth Mix to different venues.

Graduated from Glasgow School of Art with a BA (Hons) in Environmental Art, Alex lives and works in Glasgow on different projects with various organisations related to public art. After the success of Broth Mix, Alex was invited to take part do a food project as part of the Sh[OUT] programme in with the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow and the exhibition ‘This Land is Your Land’ in the Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow.

A Fertile Ground (Soup and Conversation)
talks, discussions, internet applications; 2010

Engaging the public in events and producing work from their ideas is what interests Alex as an artist. ‘A Fertile Ground’ will grow has grown from a series of four discussion events organised by her over four Sundays during the course of the exhibition. It continues her concept of exchange and sharing food and ideas. Each Sunday people are invited to have conversations about different topics concerning local food and the local area over a bowl of soup made from local ingredients, giving participants the chance to ‘throw’ different views into the soup pot. Statements and discussion from the events will be shown in the gallery among other art works.

Find out more in the Artist's and Project's website links on the right!!

Alex Frost

Alex Frost, Blind Drawing (Hearts 4), 2009, photo copyright Alex Frost & Sorcha Dallas

Alex Frost, Blind Drawing (Hearts 3), 2009, photo copyright Alex Frost & Sorcha Dallas

Alex Frost, Blind Drawing (Hearts 2), 2009, photo copyright Alex Frost & Sorcha Dallas

Alex Frost, Adult (Slimatee), 2007, photo copyright Alex Frost & Sorcha Dallas

Alex Frost, Adult (Slimatee), 2007, photo copyright Alex Frost & Sorcha Dallas

Alex Frost

Alex Frost's drawings and sculptures suggest a baroque aesthetic inspired by contemporary consumer culture. Shopping is an important part of his selection and research process. His work is both seductive and consumable; an object based sensibility that is at odds with itself.

Born in London in 1973, lives and works in Glasgow, Alex Frost’s recent solo shows include: ‘Compassion Fatigue’ at Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow; ‘BBQ’, at Artsway, Hampshire; 'Adults', at Milton Keynes Gallery and Galerie Sandra Bürgel, Berlin and ‘Format Wars’ at Tramway, Glasgow. Selected group shows include' Artists at Glenfiddich 09', The Glenfiddich Distillery, Banffshire; Artsway at Venice, Palazzo Zenobio, Venice; Jerwood Sculpture Prize 2008, Jerwood Space, London and 'The Members show' at Studio Voltaire, London. Alex is currently working on a solo show at Dundee Contemporary Arts opening in March 2010.


‘Adult (Slimatee)’

Ceramic tiles, grout, glue, canvas, polystyrene; 70 x 70 x70cm; 2007

Alex Frost’s ‘Adults’, a series of large-scale mosaic sculptures refer to a stilted adult sophistication as well as to a more playful sensibility. He creates these sculptures out of product packaging such as Ryvita, Twinings Tea and Slimatee. These enlarged and doughy distortions are playfully misshapen, squeezed out of their stackable uniformity.


‘Blind Drawing (Hearts 2, 3, 4)’

Enamel and paint on paper; 29x38cm; 2009

These ‘Blind Drawings' are part of an ongoing series of drawings started in 2006. They are made using a process that sits between drawing, painting and photography where the image is perforated into the paper and rendered by paint brushed through these punctures. This 'Hearts' series of 'Blind Drawings' depict groupings of shop bought products. All of the selected products incorporate a love-heart motif into their design but the sentiment projected is deadpan. These still-life present unsettling arrangements of baby food and medicine, health foods and classic brands.

Find out more in the Artist's website link on the right!!

Gayle Chong Kwan

Gayle Chong Kwan, Green Flash, 2006, photo copyright Gayle Chong Kwan

Gayle Chong Kwan, Manipulated Memory Tasting Booth, 2006, photo copyright Gayle Chong Kwan

Gayle Chong Kwan
As an artist-photographer, Chong Kwan works mainly with large-format photography, but also brings a variety of other media into her work including video, sound, performance, and interactive installations. A multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural background inspires the Scottish-Chinese Mauritian artist to explore issues around food, trade and tourism, related to aspects of history, the senses, memory and the personal and global politics of food, trade and tourism. These lead her to produce context-specific work, to create temporary communities, or involve people in rituals to exchange ideas.

Gayle was born in Edinburgh and currently lives and works in London, she has shown extensively in the United Kingdom and abroad: ‘Tales from the New World’, 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba; ‘Memoryscape Moravia’, Centro Cultural de Moravia, Medellin, Colombia; 'New London School’, Galerie Schuster, Berlin; ‘Utopia’, Museu Berardo, Centro Cultural do Belem, Lisbon; ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’, Platform for Art, London.


Green Flash
video & sound; 20 minutes; 2006

An emotional weather system of storms, lightning, and clouds in sound and video, recorded with the chefs in the kitchens of the Great Eastern Hotel in London. Tapping into the memories and sensory experiences of the chefs, ’Green Flash’ is created out of the leftovers from the kitchens and recreated into a miniature version of the secret marble Masonic temple, which was built into the centre of the hotel by the original owner.

Manipulated Memory Tasting Booth
cardboard, speakers, CD player, white plate, spring rolls; 180x180x60cm; 2006

The ‘Manipulated Memory Tasting Booth’ plays with authenticity and fashion in Chinese art, food and architecture. Visitors are given the opportunity to listen to recorded memories or fictional stories associated with the food, left by previous visitors. In the same way that ‘Chinese’ food undergoes a kind of translation or manipulation into other countries’ tastes, each memory or sensory recollection is a creative act affected by the circumstances in which it is experienced. The architecture of the booth is based on the design of Luke Lightfoot’s Chinoiserie Room, created for the quintessentially English Claydon House in Buckinghamshire in the 1760s.

Find out more in the Artist's website link on the right!!

Ruth Archibald-Swaans

Ruth Archibald-Swaans, Play Please!, 2009 photo copywrite Ruth Archibald-Swaans

Ruth Archibald-Swaans

Newly graduated, Ruth continues to work on what she has been interested in - food as a vehicle for social interaction and communication. In the era of fast food and when more and more people start to calculate the confusing numbers and percentages on our food packaging, she encourages the view of eating as something that is not altogether rational and should not involve forced efficiency, but plays a more important part in our social lives.

Ruth graduated with a BA in Mixed Media Textiles from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee in 2009 and is the Designer in Residence in the College at present. As an artist and designer, Ruth works with very different materials which are only linked to textile through concept.


Play Please!
food, photographs, video; 2010

The 2 games – Domino and Chess made out of food - are a playful attempt to encourage people to spend more time eating as a social activity. Their title ‘Play Please!’ also challenges the traditional role of the gallery space by encouraging people to take part in the artwork. Photographer Ewan Bachell

Find out more in the Artist's and Photographer's website links on the right!!

Contact

FCA&C

Tel: +44 (0) 1334 474610
Fax +44 (0) 1334 479880

Emails:
General: info@fcac.co.uk
Press: angela.turner@fcac.co.uk
Artists & Curator: tonia.lu@fcac.co.uk

Address:
Fife Contemporary Art & Craft
Town Hall
Queen's Gardens
St Andrews Fife, KY16 9TA

Website: http://www.fcac.co.uk/

St Andrews Museum

Tel: +44 (0) 1334 659380

Events Programme

FREE ACCOMPANYING EVENTS

Sun 24 Jan, 2pm
Exhibition tour with curator Tonia Lu and Diana Sykes of FCA&C

Sun 31 Jan, Sun 7 Feb, & Sun 21 Feb, 1pm
Discussion event (with soup) with artist Alex Wilde

Frid 12 Feb, 11am-12.30pm
Workshop with artist Ruth Archibald-Swaans for 8-12 year-olds

Frid 12 Feb, 1.30-3pm
Workshop with artist Ruth Archibald-Swaans for 13-16 year-olds

Sat 20 Feb, 1pm
Artist Gayle CHong Kwan will run a tasting & recording session for her work 'Manipulated Memory Tasting Booth' - Spring roll will be served.

Booking required for all Alex Wilde events & workshops
Please contact St Andrews Museum 01334 659380

HOTPOT [art, food + people] Exhibition Press Release

Alex Frost, Adult (Slimatee), 2007 photo copywrite Alex Frost & Sorcha Dallas

HOTPOT [art, food + people]

St Andrews Museum 23rd January 2010- 7th March 2010.

Have you recovered from the seasonal festivities? Then the calorie free ‘HOTPOT [art, food + people]’ is the exhibition for you, on show at St Andrews Museum from 23rd January 2010 through to 7th March. Fife Contemporary Art & Craft in collaboration with SAC funded trainee curator Tonia Lu brings together a group of artists who present work which is inspired by the emotional relationship between food and people. Artists Ruth Archibald-Swaans, Gayle Chong Kwan, Alex Frost, Alex Wilde and Rebecca Wilson take part.

Food is one of the basic necessities of human life. Whether a daily meal or a banquet to celebrate a special event, eating and drinking together has been an important way of developing relationships across all cultural, gender, age, race or class agendas.

Our relationship with food is a significant part of our lives. This fascinating subject has inspired the show’s artists who have explored, manipulated and responded to the theme of food resulting in drawings, photographs, sculpture, video and installation pieces which are creative, challenging and quirky with the added ingredient of humour.

Consumption and consumerism is questioned in a mix of sculpture and new drawings by Glasgow based international artist Alex Frost. Installation and photographs by ceramicist Rebecca Wilson explores the indulgent, frivolous even naughty nature of food cravings.

Audiences are invited to participate throughout the show. Gayle Chong Kwan’s, ‘Manipulated Memory Tasting Booth’, entices you in with nibbles and invites you to listen to memories of food left by previous visitors. The local community will be invited to a tasting and memory recording session run by the artist as part of the artwork.

Fife Contemporary Art & Craft have commissioned two artists to produce works for the HOTPOT exhibition. Alex Wilde’s project, ‘A Fertile Ground (Soup and Conversation)’ will engage the local community in the gallery. A series of discussion events over a bowl of soup will encourage the exploration of the everyday philosophy surrounding food, from individual rituals to family recipes. Ruth Archibald Swaans’ ‘Play Please’- games made of food - will be the centrepiece of a performance held before the exhibition and explores our interaction and handling of food. The games along with a series of photographs documenting the pre-event will be on show encouraging the audience to play the games in the gallery.

The artists range from recent graduates to the more established and are based in Scotland. For more information and electronic images please contact Angie Turner at FCA&C on angela.turner@fcac.co.uk or telephone 01334474610.