THE TROPHY ROOM

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We Are Vibrating Subjects Gentian Rhosa Meikleham & Roos Dijkhuizen Curated by: Bobby Paul Sayers

PV – 14.07.18, 5–8pm 15.07.18 – 28.07.18

The element of the unheard is continually permeating our lives, our culture, and our bodies. As subjects, vulnerable to the vibrations pervading our skins, we have no way of armouring from invisible infiltrations. In the air, unheard electromagnetic frequencies and man-made systems of power are circling. In the womb, an ultrasonic apparatus detects life.  

Roos Dijkhuizen and Gentian Meikleham met on a residency at SSW where they collaborated for the first time. Finding ties in their political interests around feminism and collectivity, Roos and Gentian continued a dialogue, which forms the basis for this exhibition.

Considering the role of costume as an active agent in the ‘othering’ of the body, the sculptural forms seek to place you outside of yourself. In ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ Donna Haraway outlines a rejection of a feminism that is based within identity politics and instead celebrates the emancipation of rigid boundaries; notably blurring boundaries between human, animal and machine. Through her call to challenge the necessity for the categorisation of gender, the ‘cyborg’ has inspired the making of these costumes, which at once calls for a celebration of the ‘other’ whilst making contact through vibration.

The element of vibration becomes an unheard infiltrator, not seen but felt, a sonic thread that binds us to each other involuntarily. Sound can extend further than our physical bodies can hear. Vibrations agitate and take us away from the dominance of language; akin to a non-verbal communicative force. In our logocentric culture where we privilege verbal language as the predominant form of communication, vibration becomes a reverberation, echoing back through other entities, connecting us with the non-human, the gestating particle, the collective conscious.

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Gentian Rhosa Meikleham (b. 1990) is a visual artist from Dundee Scotland, she holds a BA in Fine Art & Philosophy from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, University of Dundee, 2016. Gentian currently lives and works in Bergen, Norway where she is studying a masters in Fine Art at the Faculty of Art, Music & Design, University of Bergen. Her recent exhibitions include: ‘occasionally subject to gusts of life’ (solo) Galleri Fisk, Bergen, Norway, 2018;  ‘don’t worry about how you fit into my space’ (group) Livingroom Galleri, Bergen, Norway, 2018 ; ‘everything is strange, things are huge and very small’ (duo) Joy Forum, Bergen, Norway, 2018; Academiae  Youth Art Biennale, Bolzano, Italy, 2018

Roos Dijkhuizen (b.1989) is a visual artist living in Glasgow Scotland, she holds a BA in Fine Art Printmaking from Grays School of Art, Aberdeen, 2011. She works collaboratively with groups, specialists and other artists as well as exhibiting her own work. Recent projects include visual material with Cucina Povera Counterflows Festival Glasgow, ‘procuring pleasant dreams ‘ artist in residence Newburgh Fife, ‘Infra X’ with Bobby Sayers Civic House Glasgow 2017, ‘End of Play’ curated by Nikki Kane Skypark Glasgow 2017.

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Gregory Herbert MESOCOSM

PV: 09.06.18 Exhibition open via appointment: 10.06.18 – 29.06.18

Vast arrays of seemingly simple organisms that are complex on the inside.

Enormous cities are all independent, but support each other through a vast network of interactions.

Sustainable factories producing food, low resources, low waste, only producing what they need.

The waste is utilised and recycled for the foundations of these cities. These cities are radiant.

Highly intellectual in ways we cant comprehend, brains don’t matter here, enviromental feelings and instincts activate growth.

Collaboration is essential, collaboration is instinctual.

How can we learn from these naturally forming symbiotic models?

Mesocosm looks at how we could interrupt pre existing plumbing systems to create a network of independent organisms that live alongside each other. Mesocosm questions the interactions in ecosystems that are being effected by ‘hyper objects’ like global warming and looks at how survival might look in the future, by using pre-existing models as a starting point to developing new ideas.

A mesocosm (meso- or 'medium' and -cosm 'world') is any experimental system that examines the natural environment under controlled conditions. In this way mesocosm studies provide a link between field surveys and highly controlled laboratory experiments.

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Gregory Herbert investigates ecosystems and the networks of interaction between organisms and their environment. Herbert looks at the more unusual interactions on earth, were principles of Symbiosis and collaborations take precedence and uses these to influence our existence.

Herbert recently collaborated on ‘Building your partner ecosystem, Part 1 who are your potential ecosystem partners?’ with Matthew Verdon. The project looked at tech corporations’ adoption of the concept ecosystem as a strategy for value-adding and gaining competitive advantage in a structural amalgamation of ideas in terms of process and outcome with a scientific model of ‘ecosystem management’ that increases the resilience of Coral reefs. This research was introduced to the project by Marine biologist Alex Curd.

Gregory Herbert (B. 1990, Liverpool, UK) is a former Director of The Royal Standard, Currently studying MA Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University. His recent exhibitions include a collaborative project with Matthew Verdon ‘Building your potential ecosystem, Part 1: who are you potential ecosystem partners?’ Serf, Leeds and solo shows 'Phase-shift' Montreal, Canada (2017) 'Already Stale' Hutt Collective, Nottingham (2016) Herbert was selected for the 2018 Artist delegation to Budapest with Castlefield Gallery and A-N and a residency at Temple du gout, Nantes. Herbert has also been included in groups shows at Coventry Biennial (2017) Bronze Dog, Göteborg, Sweden (2017)~ Sell Out, Seize, Set The Controls From The Heart Of The Sun, Leeds (2016)~ Treat Yo Self, It’s all Tropical, Bloc Projects, Sheffield (2015) ~ Scouse House, Model, Syson Gallery, Nottingham (2015)

Herbert co-curates a project entitled ‘The Offy’ with Linny Venables which looks at alternative ways of making an artist income by making Merch. This includes projects ‘Sit Off’ The Offy x CBS, CBS Gallery, Liverpool (2018) ‘The Offy’ The Royal Standard, Liverpool (2017)

See more at: www.gregoryherbert.co.uk

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Watch in a bright room and at a safe distance from the TV! Agil Abdullayev & Wendy Asumadu Curated by Harry Meadley

In 1997 an episode of Pokémon was televised in Japan which featured rapid flickering red and blue frames which caused hundreds of children to have seizures, and in some cases epileptic fits. 685 were hospitalised. The phenomenon was widely known as Pokémon Shock. Though the footage itself was partly to blame for this, it was also exacerbated by the fact many were watching the episode close to their screens in dark rooms thus intensifying the strobing effect. Following this event, many animes, and some still to this day, display a message at the start which reads:

Watch in a bright room and at a safe distance from the TV!

In considering the accessibility and advantage that internet based video platforms offer to artists working in digital video in order to share their work; what is often overlooked is the sometimes un-ideal, and arguably unhealthy, setting in which such things are then being watched: on a laptop in bed, on an office computer, on a mobile phone… putting eye strain aside, what is common with these scenarios is that it is usually either being done alone, surrounded by distractions, or lost amongst a barrage of content.

This exhibition, which will follow its titular instruction, simply seeks to present new video works by both Agil Abdullayev and Wendy Asumadu in a clear, concentrated, and hopefully collective environment.

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Statements:

Harry Meadley

‘Wendy and Agil make super good work. It deserves attention and I’m very honoured to have had the chance to consider how to present it – that is to say, to just let the work speak for itself. I’m sure I’m slightly biased in picking them as they both share similar interests to me in the use of monologue and conversation as a mode of expression and examination. Doing so, however, always comes from a unique and individual place; and it is in the sharing of our experiences that often brings us all closer together. 

I was also only supposed to pick one artist but got greedy and wanted these two - as much as their works utilise speech, prompt conversation, and have something important to say, I wanted to hear how the works talk to each other as well.’

Harry Meadley is an artist born and based in Leeds and was recently an artist-in-residence at ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Programme), New York. He is a Liverpool Biennial Associate Artist and in 2017 presented the eight episode video work On the Bench commissioned by Up Projects for The Floating Cinema which toured the waterways of South and East Yorkshire, and North Lincolnshire in partnership with Hull City of Culture. He has exhibited at Eastside Projects, Birmingham; Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland; David Dale Gallery, Glasgow; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, amongst others; and performed at Bluecoat, Liverpool, and Jerwood Space, London.

Agil Abdullayev

My practice attempts to examine the contrasts between the East and the West, related to the subjects such as femininity and masculinity, public life and private life, human rights and politics, and bridging the spaces between these subjects. 

Politics doesn't seem to escape people like me. Every artist like me is political, in one form or another. Politics have defined our lives, as a queer man living in Azerbaijan, facing censorship, harassment, arrest or torture. Although while I live outside my hometown, Azerbaijan and experiencing the pain of the separation from my family and loved ones, only in the West I have a privilege of being free to inspire, to provoke, to mobilize, and to bring hope to my people. I took a position of the reporter of my people and communicators to the outside world. Art has become my own luxury to tell the truth.

I work with a variety of materials to fabricate my ideas, centred at moving image through filming in green screen and using pop culture gifs and social media aesthetics, I exhibit my works in single or multiple channel video installation.

Wendy Asumadu

Predominantly working in video, photography and text, my practice explores the journey to personal authenticity, what it means to be yourself and for me, an artist. I’m interested in how we can explore elements of our identity, upbringing and experiences, to determine whether it is truly who we are, or a construct of society.

 My works usually derives from my own personal experience and are a manifestation of my memories and reality. However, I aim for the narrative to extend and connect to a wider audience. In some works, I’ve focused on my family’s native language and my inability to speak it. I attempt to speak it with the help of my mother but I also question the importance of learning it since I was born, raised in London and all that I really know is London. Do I want to learn it because my parents say so or because I want to? What is important for me as an authentic individual? And how do we determine this?

 I like to use other people in my work, have conversations and discuss how experiences they’ve had, has constructed or is constructing their authentic being.

By having these conversations, I aim to put simply put some feelers out there for the audience to interpret themselves.  

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Working with no image

James Handley

Curated by Kevin Hunt

‘Referring to his infamous 'All Whites' series made in the early 1950's at the experimental, avant-garde Black Mountain College, Robert Rauschenberg said 'and so I was working with no image'. Of course, that's not entirely true, not today anyway as the image of blankness he created nearly 70 years ago is one of the great reductive moments of 20th Century art, recognisable without reference, notorious without narrative, and known the world over. A conceptual balancing act of sorts. these works played out a single premise, that one painting in the series would be indistinguishable from the next. For all intents and purposes they were the same as each other, and the same as the blank white rooms that they hung in.’

James Handley has been painting prolifically during the final year of his Undergraduate degree at Nottingham Trent University using a sickly sweet, deep dark shade of brown called 'Nutmeg Spice'. It's a voluptuously icky kind of colour, steeped with connotation for the Wild West, woodlands or maybe even waste matter, this gravy of sorts is the tone that also adorns the walls of The Trophy Room, the artist-led project-space James has been making these paintings for.

On Saturday 17th March, instead of showing these paintings however, the artist will apply 'Nutmeg Spice' paint to a set of un-primed stretched canvas under-drawings during a live durational event. Awkwardly, James' own premise proposes that his paintings not only become indistinguishable from each other, but more literally and purposely become the same as the space that they are showing in. Less serendipitous than encountering a Rauschenberg white work in a white space, what will unfold for the audience is an oddly endearing act of homage and disdain during the course of a one night only exhibition and like another of Rauschenberg's infamous works ('Erased de Kooning') we can watch as he anxiously deletes in the strive to acquire meaning. 

James Handley 

‘I’m trying to isolate a critical point in contemporary culture, where the traps society has laid makes us complicit with its inner workings. By tackling the grand narratives through deconstruction, I hope that I can make something more apparent that we, as a population, take for granted.  My focus in painting is the act of censorship and how that effects a composition. When you remove parts of a painting, what are you left with? Is it any good? Can the remnants be part of a larger composition along with the removed? Exploring how paint has been used to remove paint, I try to show how the removal still acts to a composition. Sometimes applying ‘ugly’ use of paint and sometimes a beautiful use of paint. I want to question what a painting is when you get rid of a good-looking part of a painting.’ Kevin Hunt Kevin Hunt is an artist and independent curator based in Liverpool with a predominantly sculptural practice. He was a director of The Royal Standard, an artist-led gallery, studios and social workspace in the city (2007-11); co-founded CAVE, an artist-led art fair that coincided with the opening of Liverpool Biennial (2012); co-curated MODEL, a flexible, experimental research based platform for artist-led activity programmed to run concurrently with Liverpool Biennial (2014) and in 2017 released the ARTIST-LED HOT 100 (volume ii), a long-list of some of the most exciting emerging artist groups, curatorial initiatives, content publishers and independent exhibiting spaces operating today, following on from his 2013 publication ‘celebrating fledgling and often fleeting artist-led achievements whilst highlighting their pivotal importance to the UK’s artistic ecology’.

Hunt has exhibited across the UK including recent exhibitions Abacus at Bluecoat, Liverpool, 2017; good things come... at The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth, 2016 (which he curated) and things we didn't have before at Pump House Gallery, London, 2015. In 2009 he participated in Rendez-vous 09 at the IAC as part of the 10th Biennale de Lyon. He is currently programming fs, a self-organised 'free school' open for all Liverpool-based artists to take part in free of charge, conceived to run for 12 months and comprising an intensive curriculum financed in part by an evolving set of artist multiples for sale. He is an Associate Lecturer at Manchester School of Art.

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Craig Fisher

rack 'n' ruin

Preview: 06.01.18 5–8 pm

Exhibition dates:

07.01.18 – 27.01.18

Artist Statement: ‘I make paintings, objects and large scale sculptural installations using various fabrics and textile techniques to question representations of violence, disaster and macho stereotypes. Ideas of filmic or cartoon violence are juxtaposed with decorative motifs and craft techniques; the sense of saturation at play in the work makes it easy to miss the horror due to the seductive nature and materiality of the artwork. My current practice is concerned with exploring the pictorial, sculptural and ‘site specific’ boundaries of art practice. The work situates itself by exploiting and employing contradictory methods, referencing both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and juxtaposing the pictorial with the sculptural as potential spaces of slippage, which allow for discoveries beyond confined and referenced fields of art production.’

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Craig Fisher studied Fine Art (Painting) at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne and gained his MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (2000).

He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include, ‘Gestures of Resistance’ Romantso Cultural Centre, Athens (2017); ‘Razzle Dazzle’ Transition Gallery, London; ‘Getting The Heart Ready’ at The Royal Standard, Liverpool; ‘Standardised Versions (Rubble)’, Billboard Commission at Bloc Projects, Sheffield; ‘Now For Tomorrow II’ at Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham (all 2016); ‘Jerwood Drawing Prize’, Jerwood Gallery and ‘Stand In’ in The Small Collections Room at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (both 2015). In 2014, Fisher was commissioned by LOCWS International in partnership with the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea to exhibit a large-scale public artwork in Art across the City 2014. He was recently selected for an international artist residency at Villa Lena Art Foundation, Italy (2016).

Fisher also curates ‘Mrs Rick's Cupboard’, a project that presents the work of contemporary artists in exhibitions in an unconventional gallery setting, a walk-in cupboard in his current studio at Primary, Nottingham.

 For more information, visit www.craig-fisher.com & www.mrsrickscupboard.com

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Alice Chandler Lick and a promise Preview: 11.10.2017 Exhibition open by appointment: 12.10.17 – 31.10.17

Alice Chandler’s practice is underpinned by a focus on the things we fill our world with, and why we do so. Chandler is often influenced by gender and taste, our engagement with objects and how interior space can be significant in shaping our personalities. In particular, domestic objects, as items we contend with and handle everyday, help to form a material biography of our lives.

Chandler finds interest in the relationships between familiar and unfamiliar, domestic and the industrial, functional and the functionless. Her practice often involves a crossover and blending between aspects of sculpture, craft and design.

By transforming everyday objects through use of colour, scale, and material, Chandler aims to create objects and installations that become layered with context and are capable of triggering multiple associations, whilst also maintaining a level of aesthetic pleasure.

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Alice Chandler, b.1993, is an artist currently living and working in Leeds. Chandler graduated in 2015 with a BA Hons in Sculpture at University of Edinburgh. Recent shows include: Floordrobe, Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun; Bankley Studios Open Call, Manchester; HIX Prize, London; Home and Away, Cass Art, Glasgow; General Studies, Outpost Gildengate House, Norwich; TH4Y, Generator projects, Dundee.

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Precious Innes and Kasumi Dean A New Place For Me To Sit

06.08.2017 – 26.08.2017

Kasumi Dean and Precious Innes live and work in Manchester where they previously shared a studio, and have reignited conversations, which took place there to form a dialogue for a duo exhibition. Both Innes and Dean, place playful material intervention at the core of their practices, their works bare the labour of their hands but their methods are continually shifting in sequence. For this show, they have considered how structure(s) can question how their work functions.

Kasumi Dean Through a process of arranging and rearranging, often using textiles, scraps and found objects that are suggestive of manufacture, Kasumi Dean has an ongoing interest in natural form and how nature is represented by human beings. After studying painting she is continually interested in its formal elements. More recently she has allowed her mixed Japanese and English heritage to impact her choice of materials and the formats in which she presents them. Japan is seemingly a country with conflicting ideals between the old; tradition and harmony with nature, and the new; a technological nation striving for a more typically western way of life.

Kasumi is from London and graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2016, she has exhibited at Bankley Gallery Manchester, at the 2016 Manchester Contemporary and is a Castlefield Gallery graduate mentee.

Precious Innes Innes is an artist based in Manchester. Her practice is driven by materials and intervention, often using throwaway and ad hoc substances in a way that confuses their original function. Exploring a material’s structure is vital to the playful process of Innes’ work; by using gravity as a means to push an object forcing the object to react. These materials become physically weighted by the materials in play, and weighted by form and/or composition leading to connotations of gender and sexual tension.

Innes has been exhibited as part of NY Space Gallery, Manchester; Castlefield Gallery, The Manchester Contemporary; Bankley Gallery, Manchester, and awarded a residency at Staffordshire University.

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Jonas Vansteenkiste – ‘Mr. House’ Co-curated by Sevie Tsampalla

Preview 14.06.17, 6:00 – 8:30pm Exhibition open 15.06.17 – 04.07.17 

This exhibition brings the luring storytelling of Mr House to The Trophy Room, marking the start of a conversation between artist and curator in co-devising methods to expand their practices through exhibitions and events. In this iteration Vansteenkiste revisits Mr House, a work realised in 2016 by adding architectural elements and employing different media that engages the work and the space in a process of dissection.

Jonas Vansteenkiste 

Jonas Vansteenkiste is an artist based in Kortrijk (Belgium). Vansteenkiste’s practice is underpinned by a continuous research on space and architecture. Using a range of media, the artist creates environments or situations that challenge our physical and mental experience of space. Vansteenkiste questions the home as a container of memories and a site for emotional projections between desire and reality, and it is a recurrent motif within his practice. The artist often investigates domestic architecture through scale models and house skeletons, and other responsive projects have unfolded around military, architecture sites and estates. Jonas Vansteenkiste holds an MA in Art and Design from Sint-Lucas, Antwerp (2015-16), a Master in Media Art from KASK, Ghent (2009) where he studies Fine Art (2003-2007).

Sevie Tsampalla

Sevie Tsampalla is a curator and researcher based in Liverpool. Tsampalla’s interests are within the meeting grounds between art and the political, spatial practice and collaborative processes. This helps to shape her curatorial research and practice. Tsampalla has curated various exhibitions such as: Fabric Spaces, Pianofabriek, Brussels, 2015; small change, AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, 2013; Some Misunderstanding, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, 2013 and was previously Assistant Curator for Liverpool Biennial (2015-2016) and Cluster Curator at Track (S.M.A.K., Ghent, 2011-2012). Sevie Tsampalla has an MA in Cultural Studies from KULeuvan (2009) and an MA in Art History from Athens University (2006). She is currently a PhD candidate at the Exhibition Research Lab, Liverpool John Moores University.

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Aftertaste 05.05.17 - 28.05.17 Aftertaste. A group exhibition featuring works by Juliet Fleming, Kieran Leach and Robyn Nichol curated by Hannah Tolmie. ‘Have faith in your own bad taste’ – John Waters Aftertaste seeks to ask the audience to question to what constitutes bad taste through the presentation of the artists work, involving themes of saturation and play. -- Juliet Fleming Fleming is Co-Founder and Director of M I L K Collective, an artist-led collective based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne aiming to provide a platform for emerging artists to exhibit. Juliet Fleming is an artist living and working in Newcastle. Fleming’s work seeks to question stereotyping, particularly in class & taste, gender, over-indulgence and self-indulgence, often through wordplay. Fleming often makes work in response to online articles and the work that is produced can be read as a physical embodiment of her feelings of uneasiness in a patriarchal dominated society. Kieran Leach Kieran Leach’s work explores the culture of the everyday, online and art world. Which are abstracted, condensed and often satirised; reflecting the aesthetic impact and pervasive reach of digital technology. From playful sculptural forms to modified ready-mades, his work employs bold aesthetics informed by conceptual rigour and with a dash of humour thrown into the mix. Based in Manchester, Leach’s recent exhibitions include Stick or Twist, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester; Concrete Picnic, Camp and Furnace, Liverpool: Companions, The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool. He was also shown by Castlefield Gallery at The Manchester Contemporary, Manchester (2016). Robyn Nichol Robyn Nichol is an artist based in Lancaster, who focusses on themes of heritage, identity, locality and industry. She aims to capture a sense of Northern identity. Focussed upon Yorkshire’s historical textile industry and the artists’ family background, Nichol questions the relevance of historical identity in contemporary society using her experiences and identity to influence her practice. Curator – Hannah Tolmie Hannah Tolmie is an artist based in Liverpool and a studio member at The Royal Standard. Her practice explores ideas of taste and the superficial façade, using methods of seduction and distraction. These ideas are explored through the consideration of an object's perceived value of attraction and satisfaction. Tolmie has recently worked as a Curatorial Trainee at the Liverpool Biennial and also as an artist assistant for Mette Sterre.

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Pippa Eason & Ellie Hoskins - ‘Still Scrolling’

16.02.17 - 21.02.17 PV 15.02.17 18:00 - 20:30

House Doubles is the first project within The Trophy Room, where a practicing artist is paired with a student from Liverpool John Moores University.

‘Still Scrolling’, is a joint exhibition between Pippa Eason and Ellie Hoskins that challenges contemporary tropes of social media, and its active role in the practices of post-internet artists. In a deconstruction of their disjointed realities vs. online identities, and the artists make physical responses to not only their own Instagram accounts, but also the ever-evolving online scene. The show aims to enforce both self-reflection, and a wider contextual understanding of the culture we are immersed in.

Pippa Eason

Pippa Eason (b.1993), is currently a Leeds based artist, and a member of serf, an artist run studio/project space. She also studied for both her BA and MA in Leeds. Recent exhibitions have included Penny Idol$: Whitecloth Gallery (Leeds) De-CON- Struction: Duke Street Studios, (Liverpool), TPX X MUESLI for Threshold Festival (Liverpool), The Vitrines: Pippa Eason curated by William Clarke at STCFTHOTS (Leeds), isthisit? AFK, (London), An Evening with isthisit? (Suffolk), and the collaboration with designer Nick Booton for FILLA, at Lamberts Yard Leeds.

Statements:

Pippa Eason’s work makes observations of the abstraction/perception of nature, the tangible, the everyday, and considers it within the accelerating art world. They act as props for the near fictional imagery displayed often through a screen, they come to life, crumbling from the cocoon of reality, into the pixel generated sub-human culture. The use of symbols for example: dollar signs, cacti, chains, written word, and so on articulate the separation of art in life, against art on screen. These multi layered objects, or digital works serve as a signifier for the aesthetics of contemporary commerce, and viewing. Those aesthetics are then translated into the cyber world, reiterating itself over andover again. Pippa’s work is often installed intimately into a space, making the space intrinsic to much of her practice.

www.pippaeason.com

Ellie Hoskins

Ellie Hoskins is an artist living and studying in Liverpool. Rooted primarily in existential concerns, her practice explores contemporary selfhood and responds to feelings of absurdity, anxiety, and alienation. Concerned with the current political climate, Ellie’s work raises questions about the future of humanity, and indeed humanism, in a post-digital, post-truth, and post-human world. What is a contemporary ‘self’? How do we find self-fulfilment in a time of complete uncertainty? How is authenticity achieved under the conditions of forced hybridity (multiple identities online, etc.)? How relevant are my feelings? How relevant are my fears?

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Francis Madders & Tom Doubtfire - 'For Your Scattered Interests'

PV 01.02.17 - 18:30 - 20:30 02.02.17 - 07.02.17

House Doubles is the first project within The Trophy Room, where a practicing artist is paired with a student from Liverpool John Moores University.

Statements:

Francis Madders

MY PRACTICE DEMONSTRATES AN INTUITIONAL EXPLORATION OF MATERIALS, TEXTURES AND OBJECTS. A DEFINITE CONCERN WITH PRODUCING WORK WITH STRONG FORMAL QUALITIES IS EVIDENT, YET SOMEWHAT MOTTLED BY AN INSTINCT TO EXPAND AND SEARCH FOR EXTRAVAGANCE ALL TOO REGULARLY.

ALL MY WORKS ARE HAND-MADE, THOUGH DEGREES OF SCRUFFINESS AND SLICKNESS DO VARY, SHOWING THE MOOD OF DIRECTION I TAKE NOW AND AGAIN.

WORKING FROM A HOARD OF THINGS KEPT AND COLLECTED, THE PRODUCTION OF MY OWN SCULPTURAL OBJECTS CAN BE ACHIEVED AND ALWAYS CONTINUED. FIGHTING ON A DAILY BASIS, UNDECIDED ON WHAT ‘BEGINNINGS OF PIECES’ I SHOULD APPROACH AND ATTEMPT TO DEVELOP, ALLOWS FOR A CONSTANT AIR OF DISTRACTION WITHIN MY STUDIO. THIS FOLLOWED BY CASUAL DECISION-MAKING LEADS TO SOMETHING WHICH IN ALL TRUTH COULD BE SEEN AS IDLE. HOWEVER, AN OBSESSION WITH RESOURCEFULNESS, FRUGALITY AND ‘MAKING’ DOES OVER-POWER AND ALLOW FOR WORKS TO COME TO FRUITION.

https://francismadders.com/

Tom Doubtfire

Currently studying in John Moore’s doing a Fine Art degree, my practise is always shifting and continues to change and develop. However, one thing I have always been aware of and excited by is work that, in some way, allows for audience interaction. Continuing on with my research into anamorphic art and the origins of linear perspective, I aim to explore the space in which a piece of art work encompasses and challenge the audience’s perspective. Through a more abstract and playful route, I want to invite the audience to interact with two-dimensional pieces and transform them into three-dimensional sculptures.

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Vita Evangelista - 'Hungry Gorge'

18.01.2017 - 28.01.2017

Vita Evangelista is a Brazilian visual artist living and working in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Evangelista holds a BA in Cinema and a BFA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and has participated in shows such as 'On Stage It's Bright', Tilburg, The Netherlands; 'Voice ~ Creature of Transition', Amsterdam, The Netherlands: And 'The Unique Institutional Critique Pop-Up Boutique', Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Statement: 'I am interested in the human constant search for meaning in the Self, perfectioning and augmenting our own existence through add-on tools while blurring the boundaries of spirituality and technology. Looking for a sense of soul in the replica, I reconsider the inessential nature of bots and hoaxes which, born with the intent of representing something idealized as a model, might unveil prefabricated structures of our culture. In my videos, performances and installations I dissect elements encountered in cultural mass productions in combination with an investigative personal perspective. I create paradoxical situations that aim to alienate contemporary assumptions of identity, sexuality, race, gender and class. My work seeks to destabilize discriminatory practices that are often taken for granted, mingling illusion and truthfulness, fiction and reality, while embracing absurdity as an attempt to confuse the rigidity of our positions.'

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16.11.2016 - 30.11.2016. PV Wednesday 16th November 6-9pm. Hannah Whitlow is an artist currently living and working in Nottingham, her work has been shown in exhibitions such as 'Mapping space with sound, Immigration Office, Bremen, Germany' and 'The stretch is better than the chase, Upominki, Rotterdam, The Netherlands' Hannah Whitlow's statement: How are Things? I make Things. Which is a concrete yet ambiguous word. However you would know what I meant if I said ‘pass me that Thing by the chair’. It is a placeholder for when the word is on the tip of your tongue but you can’t quite reach it. It is simultaneously general and specific. The works aren’t one Thing or another, they are a recalling of an object from a distance, they are something but you cant be sure what, they are Things. When you use the word Thing, it a loaded term that is both full and devoid of meaning, how can a word do both at the same time? How can it encompass everything but also mean nothing? The sculptures I make are the materialisation of the uncertainty of the word ‘Thing’.

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Joseph Cotgrave - ‘BTM’

16.09.2016 - 26.09.2016 ‘BTM’ or bottom defines a gay male’s role sexually, frequently used on ‘Grindr’, a gay online dating platform. Utilising ‘Grindr’ as a database of research, Cotgrave is able to translate an array of language into visual semiotics. The installation parodies the role gay men, himself included, take when using the app. Challenging sexual norms, whilst highlighting the ways gay men are sexually active, in today’s digitally saturated culture.

www.josephcotgrave.uk

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Devon Forrester-Jones 

Up Until Now

24.08.2016 The Trophy Room is proud to present our next exhibition ‘Up Until Now’ by Liverpool Based artist Devon Forrester-Jones. Devon is a Liverpool-based artist working with words, improvisation and performance to try and figure out how people really understand each other when their main means of communication is language www.devonforrester.net

[thetrophyroom]

11-04-2016 - 05-08-2016

The Trophy Room is proud to present Nottingham Trent University recent graduate and Bloomberg new contemporaries 2016 artist; Reece Straw - Trust Me "The key to more success is using the right soap. I only use Dove. Dove. Soap. Trust me." - Khaled Mohamed Khaled aka. DJ Khaled Straw practices the ancient craft of soap carving to create totems or ‘major key’s in offering to his proposed modern mythology with Khaled, Yeezus and Drizzy taking their rightful thrones in the court of the divine. Emulating early man’s pioneering of figurative sculpture, Straw interrogates ideas of humanness, Americanisation and trend culture. The carvings embody undying optimism, ‘knowing’ rather than ‘learning’ and the resilience against ‘they’, painstakingly handcrafted in worship to the elected deities. Surely by following Khaled’s teachings Straw will succeed, and also be able to handle success. Artist Statement Through documentary film, moving image, sculpture and digital photography my socially engaged practice journeys through various communities and cultural phenomena. My current interests lay in authenticity, the iconic and humanness. As new social groups occur online through memes, celebrity culture and the more recently the Yeezus revolution, I explore the inclusion/removal of being connected to multiple identities on a superficial level, able to dip in and out of subcultures to form a reflection of contemporary culture within my work. I do not aim to create a stance, only present the facts of what is happening… Right… Now.

Photos courtesy of the Artist

[thetrophyroom]

The Trophy Room, Opening Show; Benjamin Nuttall - On the Edge

06.05.2016 - 14.04.2016

Open Monday and Tuesday 1-5pm

The Trophy Room is proud to present its first exhibtion with LMJU fine art graudating student Benjamin Nuttall. www.benjaminnuttall.com Benjamin, presents installations intended to act as resonating chambers for emotions and memory. The narrative arc between elements as they are encountered forms a haunted drama in the gallery space. The components of his installations are clues that ask to be interrogated and whose logics constantly defer interpretation. He explores the male stigma and the feeling of not being able to open up which in turn questions an unwillingness of the work to open up, while offering an open surface to the viewer. Without dictating reaction, his work seeks an environment for deep, subliminal or ambiguous ways of communicating. Confrontational, while withdrawing, this tension is deployed through a mixture of film, language and appropriated items.

“The Trophy Room is an independent, new gallery space in the heart of Liverpool, based within 'The Well Studios' at 2 Roscoe Street. It aims to showcase and give opportunities to young artists who are passionate about exhibiting to the public on a professional level. Founded by director: Alexander J. Croft in 2016, the space acts as a showcase for talent, putting the spotlight on artist's work in a unique manner. Built using reclaimed wooden pallets from across Liverpool, the space aims to take aesthetics from the great hunting lodges in America. Putting Fine Art into a curious setting, acting as symbols of successes to impress the viewing public.”

Photo Credit Benjamin Nuttall, Poster Design Tyron Winter, Artwork by Benjamin Nuttall, Trophy Room Space Built by Alexander J. Croft

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