Yuko Shiraishi: Episode

A Mead Gallery Exhibition, touring to Leeds City Art Gallery
Sat 28 Sep – Wed 4 Dec 2002

Abstract painting is a consistent part of the Mead Gallery programme. This latest exhibition features new work by Yuko Shiraishi, a Japanese artist who has lived and worked in London for over twenty years. Her colourful paintings project from the gallery walls and are painted directly onto them. They are beautiful meditative works with a element of wit and surprise.

To complement Episode, Yuko Shiraishi has selected photographs from the collections of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford and other public museums. Featuring work by some of the major figures in twentieth century photography, such as Manuel Alvarez Bravo, they too evoke the sense of a moment that completes and commemorates and experience.

The development of this exhibition as an installation rather than as a simple display of paintings reflects Yuko Shiraishi’s current practice and interests. Recent commissions have included a major wall painting for Wiesbaden Museum in Germany and acting as colour advisor for the new BBC Broadcasting House development in London.

The illustrated catalogue includes essays by Andrew Benjamin, Marco Livingstone and Yuko Shiraishi.

Blast Theory: An Explicit Volume

Tue 21 – Sat 25 May 2002

‘An Explicit Volume’ is the latest work from BAFTA-shortlisted Blast Theory, one of Britain’s most adventurous artist’ groups. Investigating the effects that different media have on our viewing, this interactive installation displays sexually explicit images sourced from the internet. Each image has been placed on handmade books which are operated by an electronic page turner. Visitors may use a touch screen to select and control the images on display.

Admittance restricted to people aged over 18.

Vivid - Abstract Paintings

Exhibition curated and organised by Richard Salmon Gallery in London.
Sat 27 Apr – Fri 28 Jun 2002

Abstract Paintings by Torie Begg, Diana Cooper, Clem Crosby Jonathan Feldschuh Dennis Hollingsworth, Joan Key, Dona Nelson, thomas Nozkowski, Jonathan Parsons, maryn Simpson, Michael Stubbs, Daniel Sturgis

Vivid brings together the work of seven British and five American contemporary abstract painters. The title refers to the encounter between the work and the audience who are seduced by the force of colour, shape and texture and challenged by the absence of settled or fixed meanings.

There is great variety in this exhibition, from the mature and lyrical work of Jonathan Feldschuh to the bold and energetic marks of Clem Crosby. British artist Torie Begg follows a systematically defined way of making a painting by laying down colours in a particular order that produces very rich and complex results. American artist Diana Cooper makes maze like constructions that are at once paintings, drawings, sculpture and installation. They extend from the wall in to the gallery space, redefining and confirming the potential of this artform.

The exhibition introduced Daniel Sturgis to the Mead Gallery. One of his paintings in this exhibition was acquired for the University of Warwick Art Collection and he subsequently co-curated another exhibition about abstract painting for the Mead Gallery in 2012.

Out of Place: Landscapes from the University of Warwick Art Collection

A Mead Gallery Exhibition
Sat 27 Apr – Fri 28 Jun 2002

The collection of the University of Warwick is on open display across the campus. Every two years or so, a small proportion of it is brought into the Mead Gallery so that visitors can start to make links between works that are normally located in corridors, seminar rooms and foyers in Westwood, on the main campus and on the Gibbet Hill site.

This exhibition shows a range of approaches to landscape. Once thought of as the most inferior genre of painting it has, over recent centuries, become a vehicle for the experimentation by artists as well as one that allows the assertion of more traditional values in painting. The show includes the heavily textured work of Anne Redpath, the bright, jewel-like paintings of Mary Fedden as well as more conceptual works such as the text detailing Richard Long’s walk along a wet road or Art and Language’s map of a section of the Pacific Ocean

Nothing

Toured by the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland
Sat 12 Jan – Sat 9 Mar 2002

Artists have a history of making the abstract into concrete forms. In the midst of a flurry of debate about the mathematical history of zero, this exhibition explores a range of visual and philosophical approaches to the void, invisibility and absence.

A group show of over 30 artists, including:

Joseph Beuys, Pierre Bismuth, David Connearn, Martin Creed, Barry Flanagan, Ceal Floyer, Gilbert and George, Liam Gillick, Hans Haacke, Tatsuo Miyajima, Gabriel Orozco, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lawrence Wiener

Curated by Graham Gussin and Ele Carpenter

 Matthew Smith: The Poetics of Colour

A Mead Gallery Exhibition with support from the Guildhall Art Gallery of the City of London
Sat 12 Jan – Sat 9 Mar 2002

Matthew Smith (1879-1959) first visited France in 1910 where he came into brief contact with Matisse. His early works are characterised by the bright colours found in the avant-garde French painting of the time. His later work acknowledges nineteenth century French painters such as Delacroix with the use of richer colours and the languorous forms of his subjects. In his turn, the work of Matthew Smith influenced later artists such as Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach.

This exhibition has been curated from the works bequeathed by Mathew Smith to the City of London. Drawn from his personal collection, it presents the artist’s view of his work; his favourite sitters and his constant exploration of figure studies and the composition of still life.