NORTHSOUTHDIVINEWW Gallery, LondonWednesday 3rd April – Saturday 11th May 2013

Platform A Gallery, Middlesbrough17th May – 20th June 2013

Alison Wilding, Kate Davis,Annie O’Donnell, Phil Illingworth, Deb Covell, Tony Charles, Boa Swindler, Chiara Williams

Keeping it real | 7

North South Divine | 12

Alison Wilding | 14

Kate Davis | 16

Annie O’Donnell | 18

Phil Illingworth | 20

Deb Covell | 22

Tony Charles | 24

Boa Swindler | 26

Chiara Williams | 28

Although born into a family of cutlery makers and factory

workers, I feel rather dislocated from making and manufacture.

This isolation may be rooted in the generational dominance of

the mystery that is financial services, which makes nothing but

dominates everything and is most demonstrable in this current

government’s deficit reduction programme. Living and working

for the last four years through the deepest recession since the

1930s, in post-industrial Teesside, has provided me with a fresh

appreciation of what it means to make art and to see how the

act of making is still necessary, whilst navigating the current

erosion of basic, and hard-won, equality.

I would suggest that the group of artists who have curated and

exhibit in 'North South Divine' are grappling with some of

these same vexations and contradictions. Issues that

characterise our shared 21st century experience in the UK and

in the art world we chose to inhabit. Their strident

investigation into, and reaction to, the dogmatism of

modernism is laced with warmth, witticism and a self-

deprecating humour which speaks to me. With the conscious

weight of 20th century art theory framing their practice, they

KEEPING IT REAL - In Teesside and East LondonKate Brindley, Director, mima

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punch out, commenting, humouring, and referencing,

suggesting that we too keep holding up the mirror.

The artists play with the domestic and public space. In art and

civic worlds that still privilege the heroic and virtuoso

associated with the masculine, they question the dominant

narratives of art and society. Boa Swindler takes the stuff of

our covertly misogynist culture she calls ‘everyday sexism’ in

her witty ‘Music for Brainwashing’ series. Through her palette

of seemingly democratic language and found images, she

reveals how we are all colluders in this culture of demeaning.

Annie O’Donnell’s playful, plastic sculptures are the height of

'Teesside Rococo' in their bright improvisation and gaudy

approachability. With reference to her lineage in Billingham,

capital of plastic products, O’Donnell takes the working class

everyday and creates new narratives about herself, where she

is from and what we view as the monumental, so familiar in

urban settings. It's as deeply rooted as Hepworth is in

Yorkshire in the use of the vernacular but it's a new sort of

romanticism, one born- out of the Smiths generation of the

anti-heroic, which is both generic and specific to her roots.

This same jocular, ornate quality can be found in Chiara

Williams work, who is equally as obsessed by objects and

materials, found and manufactured, although here there is a

more overt set of signifiers at play. She uses copper wire from

televisions to form beautifully coloured flowers, with all their

association to the feminine and to the Venus and Aphrodite

myths which still persist in our post feminist world. Her 'Birth

of Venus' lays this bare, with its plump, glistening yolk on

ultramarine pigment. The most precious of painters’ pigments,

8

associated with the virgin’s mantle, sits in a compact, the

everyday device found in handbags. Nothing is too banal to

escape her commentary.

In Kate Davis’s work the sensual and intellectual meet as she

combines manufactured materials with the natural to create

eloquent metaphors. She says ’the stuff of living is not

enough’, and so through her work she searches for other

knowledge. She combines elements that seek to show us a

glimpse of the unseen world, imagined and possibly divine.

Lemons are a recurring motif, their luscious colour and waxy

texture are seductive as is their symbolism of sexual duality.

Lemons make reference to mythology, yet remain reassuringly

everyday. Mirrors too recur as they do with her pupil, Chiara

Williams. They remain a symbol and a challenge for artists to

reflect the world back to the viewer.

Painterly matters are being explored by many of the artists in

this exhibition. Painting, the ultimate modernist language is

challenged and utilised on a number of fronts.

Phil Illingworth's work speaks about abstraction in his use of

organic and manufactured self-referencing objects. Colour is

key here, to delight and to tease us. With Tony Charles, the

surface is all important as part of the subject of his ‘paintings’.

Charles’s years in steel manufacture show a deep passion for

the material he uses. He paints, erases and finishes with a slick

sheen, but don’t be fooled that this is an uncritical affinity with

industrial material. The erasure of a painted composition with a

grinding tool discovers tensions and divisions between practical

purpose and aesthetic decisions. This activity challenges the

artist during the process and questions painting in general,

resulting in a presentation of an industrial process as much as

an abstract visual language.

Alison Wilding is an under-celebrated figure in the current

British art scene, so it is gratifying to see her work represented

in ‘North South Divine‘. Her invitation to show again in

Middlesbrough following her beautiful exhibition as part of the

1996 Cleveland Drawing Biennial, is also a welcome return to an

artist who clearly understands the physicality of choosing and

placing materials together in her powerful autobiographical work

which speaks coherently of duality.

Material and meaning also seem to be as one in Deb Covell’s

paintings, these laboriously worked beautiful objects are

somewhere between paintings and sculptures, with materiality

again being the topic. Covell, as with Davis, is interested in the

ephemeral, she creates spaces to pause and breathe, her

practice ‘attempts to bridge the gap between the ordinary and

the familiar with an often idealistic quest for beauty and purity’. 1

North South Divine is a confident dialogue and collaboration,

between the artists at Platform A and WW Gallery. The stage is

London and Teesside, the players are deliberately cross

generational. Kate Davis and Alison Wilding are invited as

respected, established figures to join the conversation about

unity and divide. Their commonality is the visceral, they return

repeatedly to the manipulation and critique of materials in their

dialogue. Their spirit is independent, generous, mutual and

respectful but with a desire to interrogate. Their style is

subversive, cheeky and smart. Their shared endeavour is how

1 Simon Grennan 'Ply Series' 2011

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to make meaningful work and in this quest they want to show

us the power structures of art and civic life within which we

operate, to think about what is tacit and covert, to illustrate the

physicality of existence as a site for the imagined and to

demonstrate that artists still have much to say.

" The reason I keep coming back to art is that it does feel like a

place where a central focus is to look at ourselves in our

environments and offer different narratives which will give

different perspectives on what could be, as well as what is." 2

Kate Brindley has been Director of mima (Middlesbrough

Institute of Modern Art) since July 2009. She has 20 years

experience in the visual arts and museums sector with

particular experience in working with 20th century art

collections and capital developments. Previous roles include:

Head of Arts and Museums for Wolverhampton; and Director of

Museums, Galleries and Archives for Bristol City Council. She

is one of only four national advisors for the Paul Hamlyn

Foundation Arts Funding Programme and chairs their new

museums and galleries initiative, “Our Museums”. Kate is Vice

Chair of the AV Festival North East and an Associate of the

Museums Association. www.visitmima.com 

2 Kate Gray, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh. ‘Gallery as Community: Art,

Education, Politics’ Editor Marijke Steedman

WW and Platform A are pleased to present North South

Divine, an exhibition of works by eight artists which will be

spread across two cities, in the North and South of the country.

Organised in partnership between the two galleries, the

exhibition will open in London at WW Gallery and tour to

Middlesbrough’s Platform A Gallery.

North South Divine makes obvious reference to the age-old

geographical and traditional social tensions between both ends

of the country. This opposition is brought into focus by the

locations of the two collaborating venues: WW gallery is

situated in Hatton Garden, the diamond district of London and

home to purveyors of expensive decorative finery; while in

contrast, Platform A exists within a North Eastern railway

station, located deep in the heartland of heavy industry.

The artists exhibiting in North South Divine have paid no heed to

this dichotomy in the making of their work, yet all the artworks

in the show possess a fusion of stereotypical bi-polar

characteristics which suggest the gracefully gritty, the silently

strong and the richly real. These are works which complement

or overlap in their processes, materials, concepts and reference

points. Strength meets sensitivity, serious creative practice

meets humour; ultimately, the show expresses the very simple

beauty of shared belief, the unity of ideas and the pleasure of

real conversation.

NORTHSOUTHDIVINE

12

About WW

Established in 2008, WW is one of London’s leading

contemporary artist-run spaces with a reputation for

consistently forward-thinking and innovative projects. Spread

across 1200 square feet of sky-lit rooms, the exhibition space,

shop and lounge occupy the premises of a former jeweller's

workshop in the heart of Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell,

conveniently located between Farringdon and Chancery Lane

tube stations.

About Platform A

Founded as an extension to Platform Art Studios in 2011,

Platform A is a gallery dedicated to innovative developments in

contemporary art through its diverse programme of exhibitions.

Located in the railway station of central Middlesbrough,

Platform A represents emerging and established artists and is

committed to working creatively, exploring new approaches to

arrive at the best outcomes to provide the highest calibre

exhibition programme.

Alison Wilding appears courtesy Karsten Schubert, London

Kate Davis appears courtesy Fred [London]

Phil Illingworth, Boa Swindler & Chiara Williams appear courtesy

WW, London

Annie O’Donnell, Tony Charles & Deb Covell appear courtesy

Platform A, Middlesbrough.

Turner Prize-nominated sculptor Alison Wilding

rose to prominence in the early 1980s. Wilding's

first major solo exhibition was held at the

Serpentine Gallery, London in 1985, her first

international solo show was held at the Museum

of Modern Art, New York in 1987 and a major

retrospective ‘Alison Wilding: Immersion –

Sculpture from Ten Years' was held at the Tate

Gallery, Liverpool in 1991. She was nominated

for the Turner Prize in 1992, received a Henry

Moore Fellowship for The British School at

Rome in 1998 and was elected RA in 1999. Her

public sculpture commissions include the

installation of Ambit, River Wear, Sunderland in

1999. Alison Wilding lives and works in London,

is represented by Karsten Schubert and exhibits

extensively throughout the world in solo and

group shows. Collections include Tate Britain,

British Council, Arts Council, FRAC Pays de la

Loire, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Scottish

National Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery, Henry

Moore Institute.

Alison Wilding

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Alison Wilding

AerielLaser cut mild steel, ink on Japanese paper

2008

Kate Davis is primarily a sculptor whose practice

includes performative lectures, video, drawings,

texts and objects; which are often all brought

together in the same exhibition. Her work

addresses issues of the heart, mortality and

desire.

Kate Davis studied at Hertfordshire College of

Art, Falmouth School of Art and the Slade,

London. She has received numerous awards;

including the Sydney Water Sculpture Prize; the

first Jerwood Drawing Prize; the Sargeant

fellowship at the British School of Rome; the

Stanley Picker Fellowship and the Young Artist

of the Year Award at Whitechapel Gallery,

London. She has taught extensively throughout

the UK and exhibits nationally and internationally.

She is currently represented by Fred [London]

and is a tutor at the Royal College of Art in the

Sculpture Department.

Kate Davis

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Kate Davis

Le vent se lève(The Wind Rises): steel, painted bronze, portfolio of drawings

and texts (1982-2011)

Original 1991, re-made 2003

Annie O’Donnell’s practice forms an idiosyncratic

expression of the ‘hyperlocal’, the baseline

spatial knowledge that each individual uses to

interpret sites and their objects.

Unfolding the links and intersections between

people and their significant places, O’Donnell re-

visions the monumental sculptural paradigm,

demonstrating the potential of alternative place-

making dialogues and strategies, and how they

operate at various scales.

Annie O’Donnell studied Fine Art at Cleveland

College of Art and Design after a career as a

community dance artist. Going on to Newcastle

University to complete an MFA and PhD, her

first solo exhibition, ‘Know Your Place’, recently

formed part of ongoing sculptural research into

place identity. O’Donnell’s work was most

recently shown at SCOPE New York 2013. She

lives and works on Teesside and is represented

by Platform A Gallery.

Annie O’Donnell

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Annie O’Donnell

Black Pyjamas (Seeing Myself in the Dark)Fabric blinds, plastic cable ties, installation view (front)

2012

Phil Illingworth has exhibited nationally and

internationally, including at the 53rd Venice

Biennale with WW Gallery in ‘Travelling Light’.

His work was selected for exhibition in the 2010

John Moores Painting Prize, the UK's most

prestigious painting prize.

Illingworth’s practice is defined by

experimentation. The work tends to be driven by

concept rather than discrete process,

nevertheless the relationship between the

concept, the materials he chooses and the form

of execution is a meticulous and obsessive

consideration. His most recent work explores

stimulus response and conditioning, and the

notion that 'truth' can be arbitrary, or little more

than the outcome of a series of agreed

conventions. His practice includes sculpture,

painting, video, drawing and photography.

He lives and works in England and France and is

represented by WW Gallery.

Phil Illingworth

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Phil Illingworth

The parasite and the hostMDF, primer, gesso, acrylic paints, acryl rod, metal

2013

The visual simplicity of Deb Covell’s work belies

the intense rigor required in making her pared

down refined compositions.

Behind every painting there is a complex

creative process, which is characterised by

scrutiny and alteration. Throughout this process

each step is reconfigured and reexamined with

decisions being made subjectively until the

paintings take on a resolute strength and

insistency of their own.

Through the transformative processes involved

the works arrive at a point where they are

temporally and materially invested objects that

carry the weight and noise of life, yet become

still and silent vehicles for contemplation.

Deb gained her BA (hons) in Fine art from

Liverpool Polytechnic and  her MA in Fine art at

the University of East London. Recent

exhibitions include Secret, Royal College of Art,

Station to Station , Scope ,New York and the

54th Venice Biennale. Her work is held in private

and public collections in the UK and abroad

including Paintings in Hospitals and the mima

collection. She currently lives in Saltburn by the

Sea and is represented by Platform A Gallery.

Deb Covell

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Deb Covell

Unexpected ArrivalEggshell paint on wood support

2013

Recent work by Tony Charles involves the

investigation into the relationship between

sculpture and the two dimensional

representation of objects.

In ‘Un-painting the abstract’ a continuation of

Charles’ investigation into painting concentrates

on a more traditional painting format where,

again, the relationship between brushstrokes

and grind marks explore the idea of objecthood.

This time it is combined with an investigation of

abstraction. These painted objects that again

have been industrially ground back to metal, are

a presentation of an industrial process as much

as an abstract visual language.

Tony gained a BA(Hons) in fine art from Teesside

University and an MA in Fine Art from

Northumbria University. His work was exhibited

at the 54th Venice Biennale and he is the winner

of the Premio Comel 2013 award in Rome.

Tony’s work exists in both public and private

collections internationally, including the mima

collection, the Comel collection Italy, and a

private collection in Singapore.

Tony Charles

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Tony Charles

Unpainting (Fettled Sign)Gloss paint and resin on aluminium

2012

Boa Swindler’s work initiates from issues

surrounding the language (visual & verbal) of

power and persuasion. Her collage and

assemblage practice is informed by the

techniques of the Dadaists and frequently

employs the use of visual puns.

Swindler’s new body of work MFB (Music For

Brainwashing) takes its cue from the 'cheesy

listening' record label MFP (Music For Pleasure)

and examines the not so easy lyrics associated

with 'mellow' music. MFB is a comment on the

misogyny still rampant in our society, especially

given the recent vile attacks on academic Mary

Beard. Swindler also looks at the role of women

as ‘colluders’, or willing participants in ‘everyday

sexism’, reinforcing female insecurities and

hindering female equality.

Swindler trained in printmaking and painting at

CSM, LCC and UEL. Internationally exhibited,

including the 53rd & 54th Venice Biennale, her

work is in private collections in New York, Tokyo,

Zurich and London, including the Factory Art

Collection and the V&A Museum. She is

represented by WW Gallery.

Boa Swindler

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Boa Swindler

MFB 1Wood, aluminium sugar shakers, tassles, voice recording, headphones

2013

Working across sculpture, installation and

painting, Chiara Williams assembles often

unusual combinations of objects and materials to

respond to and represent physical sensations,

desires and frustrations.

Williams is obsessively curious about the

properties and behaviours of materials – and

equally preoccupied by the sensations they

evoke when they interact with one another. The

work is rooted in a geometric tension that plays

on several senses at once and her own

Synesthesia which informs her approach.

Williams’ work is in the Paintings in Hospitals

Collection as well as private collections in the

UK, Italy, Russia, Germany and USA. Her work

has been shown nationally and internationally,

most recently at the 53rd & 54th Venice

Biennales. She studied Fine Art at The Ruskin

School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of

Oxford and Audio Visual Production at London

Metropolitan University. She has worked in

Venice and London lecturing in art history, fine

art, design and media for over ten years, and in

various gallery and museum contexts such as the

Venice Biennale, British Council and Modern Art

Oxford. She set up WW in 2008 with fellow artist

and curator Debra Wilson.

Chiara Williams

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Chiara Williams

Transverse Venus (Bone)Jesmonite, MDF, enamel paint, paper

2013

NORTH SOUTH DIVINE

Published by WW Gallery and Platform A Gallery

3rd April – Saturday 11th May 2013 WW Gallery34/35 Hatton GardenLondon EC1N 8DX

17th May – 20th June 2013 Platform A Gallery Middlesbrough Railway StationZetland RoadMiddlesbrough TS1 1EG

www.wilsonwilliamsgallery.comwww.platformagallery.net© 2013 WW Gallery. All rights reserved

All images © the artists