Tate St Ives
3 February – 13 May 2007
This exhibition – chosen by Tate St Ives Director Susan Daniel-McElroy and Curator Sara Hughes – includes more than twenty artists living and working in Cornwall, focussing particularly on Penwith. A curatorial selection rather than a survey of artist’s practise, Art Now Cornwall will help promote discussion and awareness of emerging artistic trends.
Reflecting some of the rich diversity of practice, not unexpectedly, the legacy of late English Modernism is evident in a number of artists’ practice through either a constructionist or a gestural approach. However, the projection of internal mental life onto nature and the development of complex visual fictions and references are a relatively recent phenomenon in Cornwall. Within the exhibition the influence of the Cornish light and landscape on contemporary practice is surprisingly uncommon. Instead, there are autobiographical, gothic and whimsical concerns expressed in a variety of works from painting, drawing, lithography, sculpture, performance, film and video.
Amongst the artists included are former Artists in Residence, painter Partou Zia and photographer Andy Hughes, two artists whose work is in the Tate Collection; Ged Quinn and Richard Cook, and performance artist Amanda Lorens.
This unmissable exhibition will cause much debate about contemporary practice, and it is hoped to be the first in a new series of exhibitions celebrating the distinctiveness of the visual arts in the county.