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This month, KARST is pleased to welcome two graduate artists for a six-month studio residency, Jemima Mansell (Arts University Plymouth) and Maisy Timney (Bath Spa University).

Jemima Mansell’s multidisciplinary-led practice explores the resonating relationships formed between humans and technology, a result of technology’s ever-present role in our everyday life. Through methods of installation, poetry and moving image, Jemima addresses ontological themes of embodiment and the blurring of boundaries. Her primary material and muse consists of pre-used and broken technology. 

                                 

Jemima says: “During my six month residency at KARST I am looking forward to using the studio to expand upon my practice by taking risks and exploring new ways of making. I imagine this will be invigorated by working amongst the the diverse range of creatives who currently hold studios at KARST”

 

Maisy Timney’s paintings are a hybrid exploration of digital and painterly aesthetics. Through a formalist approach to abstract painting, Maisy explores motif, form and colour and investigates the interplay between pictorial depth and flatness in a two-dimensional space. Maintaining an intentional inconsistency in the treatment of paint, Maisy’s work demonstrates the tension between the confines of the painted surface and pictorial image.

                                   

Maisy says: “I am looking forward to immersing myself in my practice and developing a body of paintings during this residency, exploring new techniques and ideas. I’m also excited to connect with and be inspired by the artists and creatives within the community at KARST.”

We are pleased to announce that four new studio holders have joined KARST’s community. KARST welcomes Maia Walton and Tressa Thomas (In The Making), Kelly Bryant and Jess Scott. 

In The Making is the combined identity of artists Maia Walton and Tressa Thomas. Their practice, a combination of experimental sculpture-making and community-engaged projects, seeks to mobilise intuitive making as a method for community building and connecting to the more-than-human world. In The Making are invested in practices that foster reciprocal relationships with the natural world, thereby resisting capitalist models of art and consumption. Their goal is to foster dialogue around material origin, agency, and legacy while engaging with their community through art-making and storytelling.

                 

Maia and Tressa say: “We are thrilled to be joining KARST’s community of experimental artists and community builders. This marks a new chapter for us, one in which we plan to stretch the scale of our sculptures, the rate at which we experiment with foraged materials, and the scope of our community projects.”

Kelly Bryant is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, working with film, projection, live performance, site-specific, and installation. Her work considers the many manifestations of the contemporary screen whilst reflecting on her own relationship, conditioning, and changing perspectives of screen relations. Kelly’s work explores the screen’s form, a transient surface of materiality and immateriality, utilising screen landscapes with an invitation to touch film with one’s eye in a digital dematerialised era.

                 

Kelly says: “Collaborating with different artists and mediums is a fundamental part of my practice. I am so excited to be a part of KARST’s diverse and vibrant community to form new connections and perspectives. To be surrounded by talented artists who I admire is such a privilege.”

Jess Scott is an artist and filmmaker, experimenting with the boundaries of film and fine art. Fascinated by how we record and are recorded, how we view and are viewed, they take inspiration from and subvert storytelling traditions. Their practice spans film, animation, collage and printmaking – any method that takes existing images and cuts them up to create new meaning.

                 

Jess says: “Since volunteering at KARST I have met some amazing people and look forward to being a part of it.”

Last month, curator Ashish Ghadiali brought together artists Annalee Davis, Kedisha Coakley, Iman Datoo and Ashanti Hare for a panel discussion hosted in KARST’s Fenster space as part of the opening event for our current exhibition, Against Apartheid. Didn’t make the live event? Scroll down to watch the full recording.

 

 

Film: Craig Whyte

This month, KARST is pleased to welcome two graduate artists for a six-month studio residency, Beth Evans (Arts University Plymouth) and Sophie Lines (Bath Spa University).

Beth Evans is a multidisciplinary artist, illustrator and writer whose practice is informed by both lived experience and imagined realities. Taking influence from the scientific and the poetic, Beth adopts non-tangible concepts and transforms them into ‘sculptural metaphors’. Currently, they are exploring what it means to create intimate, autobiographical work whilst simultaneously remaining distant enough that the practice remains emotionally sustainable. 

             

Beth says: “I can’t wait to be in the studio, working amongst KARST’s community of artists and having the space to let my practice grow organically, maybe in scale, but definitely in concept.”

Sophie Line is an artist fabricating for the future, heavily influenced by found objects, nature and futuristic plants. They explore this through process-based works that evoke an emotional response. Sophie pushes the limits of materiality. This stems from their investigation into sustainable resources, material alternatives and producing their own bioplastics. Sophie intends to blur the boundaries between art, science and design, exploring how they can come together to create sustainable alternatives to environmental issues.

             

Sophie says: I am thrilled to be joining KARST and cannot wait to engage with the community and fellow creatives. I am excited to explore the unique and diverse natural environment of Plymouth to see how it can inspire and influence my practice.

Four new studio holders have joined KARST’s community, taking residence in Under – the space below KARST. We welcome Rachel Dobbs and Hannah Rose (LOW PROFILE), Tom Pether and Arielle Etheridge. 

LOW PROFILE are artists Rachel Dobbs and Hannah Rose who have been working together in collaboration since 2003. The pair are most interested in the connections between people and creating new experiences that happen in people’s real lives. They find ways to create temporary communities, collective experiences and situations that get people thinking about their individual role within a group. They celebrate the strength of coming together, camaraderie, resourcefulness, resilience, generosity and loyalty.

           

Rachel and Hannah say: “We have started to make larger physical objects and need to have more space to experiment and develop ideas. We’re really looking forward to being able to have a space to work out ideas and leave them ‘up’ to return to. We are also super excited to be part of an artist community and to benefit from hanging out with other artists we admire.”

LOW PROFILE are currently undertaking a residency at GROW, Plymouth, where they are inviting people to come to free, drop-in Making Days. Using simple patchwork and hand-quilting techniques, people work together to make artworks that celebrate the power of coming together to achieve change through community building, group effort and collective action.

Tom Pether is a visual artist and writer whose work explores memory, fantasy, and the ways in which we are haunted – both by the past and the future. Through simple material juxtapositions, Tom´s sculptures build unstable bridges between the concrete and the ephemeral, and reference both our desire to escape the world and our inevitable failure to do so.

           

Tom says: “Being new to Plymouth, it is really exciting to be invited to join this vibrant studio community. It feels great to become a part of the city´s art scene, and I´m looking forward to opportunities for collaboration.”

Arielle Etheridge is a biracial, American artist based in Devon. Her work looks into her ancestry surrounding the Etheridge slave plantation and draws on collective cultural memory and the black Atlantic. Arielle explores traditional ways of making – including quilting, weaving, printmaking and natural dyeing – alongside modern practices such as photography.

           

Arielle says: “This is my first time having my own studio and I’m so happy it’s at KARST. There is always something going on, whether it’s crits, talks, artist-led events or shows. It’s such a great community to belong to!

Four new studio holders have joined KARST’s community, taking residence in Under – the space below KARST. We welcome Robin Mackay & Amy Ireland (Urbanomic), Lou Holland and Laura Hopes as our most recent studio artists.

Robin Mackay is a philosopher, editor, and translator who has written and spoken extensively on contemporary art and philosophy, and has worked with a number of artists developing cross-disciplinary projects. Their own work includes the audio essay By the North Sea, with recent performances in London, Berlin and New York, a series of collaborations with composer Florian Hecker, and hyperpop-jungle crossover as DJK Huysmans.

Amy Ireland is a writer and theorist whose work focuses on gender and technology. She has published widely in contemporary art journals and magazines and her poetry and performance work have been included in exhibitions such as the 20th Biennale of Sydney, London’s Barbican Centre’s 2019 exhibition ‘AI: More than Human’, and the 2021 Athens Biennale.

Robin and Amy run Urbanomic, an independent publishing house that aims to engender and promote interdisciplinary thinking across the arts, sciences, and popular culture. Beginning with the journal Collapse, since 2007 Urbanomic has published more than forty books on an eclectic range of subjects as well as curating numerous events, artists’ editions, and podcasts, and has garnered a cult following worldwide.

Robin and Amy say, “For us, joining the Karst community is an opportunity to anchor ourselves in Plymouth, connect with others, and discover productive synergies between our existing projects and international network and the city’s cultural scenes.”

Forthcoming projects include publication of a major new work on Marcel Duchamp, including a special deluxe edition produced with Cerith Wyn Evans, podcasts with Swiss artist Yves Mettler and French sailor-philosopher Gilles Grelet, and a collaborative NFT project with Rhea Myers to accompany her book.

Laura Hopes is an artist, researcher and lecturer whose practice and writing often focuses upon explorations of vulnerability in history, land and bodies. She is a member of the artists collective Still/Moving who have worked together on several projects.

Laura says, “I’m looking forward to being part of the studio community and to developing my individual and collaborative practice alongside other artists: to give time and space to new ideas, accidents and exchange.”

Laura is currently working with Dr Katharine Earnshaw (University of Exeter) on an interdisciplinary exploration of fields, bridging Classics and Visual Arts together in a co-created artistic book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lou Holland is an artist who occupies the spaces in-between. Concerned with examining, stretching and overlapping the boundaries between illustration and contemporary art. Wandering, journey-making, knitting, drawing, painting, and anything she fancies are all parts of her practice. She enjoys creating bodies of work that allow her to connect dots, form understanding and create developing methodologies.

Lou says, “I am really excited to be part of such a dynamic space that feels very full of life – and to be making within a community of great artists that I can bounce off.”

Most recently she has been exploring bold hand-written typography to tell personal narratives.

37 artists have been confirmed for this fourth and final stop on the national tour, which brings the work of some of the UK’s most exciting contemporary artists to four cities every five years.

British Art Show 9 is curated by Irene Aristizábal and Hammad Nasar and highlights work that has been made since 2015. The exhibition is structured around three main themes – Healing, Care and Reparative History, Tactics for Togetherness and Imagining New Futures – and has evolved with every city, with a different combination of artworks and artists that respond to each location.

In Plymouth, the exhibition will be centred on the migration of bodies, peoples, plants, objects, ideas and forms; taking inspiration from and referencing the role it has played in Britain’s colonial past, as well as the encounters between British and other cultures that have and continue to enrich our society.

The selected artists will present their work across four different venues: KARST, The Box, The Levinsky Gallery at the University of Plymouth and MIRROR at the Arts University Plymouth. It’s the second time Plymouth has hosted the ambitious exhibition, following its successful presentation of British Art Show 7 in 2011. In 2022, the exhibition will also be delivered in partnership with Plymouth Culture.

The confirmed artists for Plymouth are:

Hurvin Anderson
Michael Armitage
Oliver Beer
Maeve Brennan
James Bridle
Helen Cammock
Than Hussein Clark
Cooking Sections
Mandy El-Sayegh
Sean Edwards
GAIKA
Beatrice Gibson
Patrick Goddard
Anne Hardy
Celia Hempton
Andy Holden
Marguerite Humeau
Ghislaine Leung
Lawrence Lek
Elaine Mitchener
Oscar Murillo
Grace Ndiritu
Uriel Orlow
Hardeep Pandhal
Hetain Patel
Florence Peake
Heather Phillipson
Joanna Piotrowska
Abigail Reynolds
Margaret Salmon
Katie Schwab
Tai Shani
Hanna Tuulikki
Caroline Walker
Alberta Whittle
Rehana Zaman
Sin Wai Kin

Their works include film, photography, multimedia, painting, sculpture and performance. They’re
presented at a precarious moment in Britain’s history, which has brought politics of identity and nation, concerns of social, racial and environmental justice, and questions of agency to the centre of public consciousness.

British Art Show 9 also includes a programme of artist films and a dedicated website which enables
artists to share works online. A programme of events and talks for people of all ages will take place in Plymouth, while outreach and Ambassador programmes will create further opportunities for people to engage with the exhibition and its themes.

Selected highlights of BAS9 Plymouth:

• Oliver Beer: Household Gods (2019) is a sound and sculptural installation presented at MIRROR, Arts University Plymouth, consisting of vessels selected by the artist for their specific musical resonances. The objects are equipped with internal microphones that capture their internal ambient noise to create a symphony that resonates throughout the gallery.
• Cooking Sections: CLIMAVORE: Marsh Orchards / Mining Meadows (2022) is a project that
  seeks to develop a long-term vision and plan to transform the riparian zone of Plymouth back into a thriving ecosystem that grows food while cultivating habitats.
• Beatrice Gibson: Gibson’s Alkestis (2022) is an immersive video installation ruminating from a tragic-comic perspective on death and the end of history. Featuring the artist and her young
  family, the piece charts their relocation from post Brexit Britain to the Mediterranean in a time of political, social and economic chaos.
• Celia Hempton: Hempton’s Chat Random paintings are a series of portraits painted ‘live’ whilst using the website chatrandom.com, a social networking platform facilitating video chat randomly with other users of the site.
• Marguerite Humeau: Humeau’s Venus of Frasassi, A 10-year-old female human has ingested a rabbit’s brain (2018) is part of a series of sculptural works often titled after prehistoric Venus figures. The work is based on archaeologist Bethe Hagens’ theory linking the figures by their formal similarity to animal brains. The title of the work also emphasises the fluid connection between language, consciousness, and sculptural form.
• Ghislaine Leung: Leung’s playful interventions often take a critical look at art galleries. In the
  case of VIOLETS 2 (2018) she uses deceptively minimal means and readymade objects to highlight what is often unnoticed in institutions.
• Elaine Mitchener: Mitchener’s installation memorialises some of the 2,000 enslaved African
  people owned by an 18th-century sugar planter. He inventoried these people along with other
  possessions such as furniture and livestock, replacing their birth names with English names.
• Hanna Tuulikki: A performance of Tuulikki’s Seals’kin (2022), a sonic and choreographic meditation on loss, longing, transformation and kinship exploring myths of human-seal hybridity and folkloric musical practices.
• Alberta Whittle: Whittle’s filmic and performative installations unravel ‘contested, difficult histories’ to open up space for reconciliation. Her British Art Show 9 commission, Hindsight is a luxury you cannot afford (2021-2), is an evolving body of work that developed over the course of the exhibition. It reflects on the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage from Plymouth to the so-called ‘New World’.

Brian Cass, Senior Curator, Hayward Gallery Touring, said: “We’re really looking forward to returning to Plymouth, just over ten years on from the last time it hosted a British Art Show. In 2011, it was the first time a number of the city’s galleries had worked collaboratively to stage such a major contemporary art exhibition and it created a real impact and legacy. We’re delighted to be working with The Box, KARST, the Levinsky Gallery, MIRROR and Plymouth Culture on this exhibition bya range of remarkable artists, and hope this iteration of the show will create conversations, challenge perceptions and encourage visitors to reflect on this unique time that the art world and society in general finds itself in.”

Victoria Pomery, CEO, The Box said: “Excitement for British Art Show 9 is really starting to build in Plymouth so we’re extremely pleased to be able to reveal the names of the artists who’ll be presenting their work in the city. Working with Hayward Gallery Touring to create a presentation that is sympathetic to the challenges we’ve faced over the last couple of years, but which also references Plymouth and its particular histories has been a unique experience for a touring exhibition. We’re really keen to see how visitors across all four venues respond and are working hard to develop a high quality engagement programme alongside the main exhibition that will offer them lots of different ways to get involved.”

Hammad Nasar and Irene Aristizábal, Curators of British Art Show 9, said: “As a thriving port over
the centuries, and a place of arrival and departure, Plymouth holds a fascinating place in the story of Britain and Europe’s historical relationship with other lands and worlds. Connecting the power of art with these histories gives us an opportunity to have challenging but essential conversations with audiences about colonisation, exploitation and the genocide and treatment of indigenous cultures and practices. We are pleased to bring the culmination of British Art Show 9 to Plymouth this autumn and present the fourth iteration of this landmark exhibition.”

British Art Show 9 is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition presented in collaboration with the cities of Aberdeen, Wolverhampton, Manchester and Plymouth. Curated by Irene Aristizábal and Hammad
Nasar.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Hayward Gallery Publishing, which includes two wide-ranging curatorial essays, over 200 colour illustrations and original texts on all 47 artists featured in the British Art Show 9 tour.

In February, KARST welcomed new members into the studio community.

Jean-Paul Bellamy-Wallace has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Paris, Rennes and Brest. He is a qualified teacher of plastic arts and scenography and has worked on set design for Opera de Paris and Opera Comique before moving to Devon in 2022.

Jean-Paul says “I am looking to get involved in an artistic community here, beyond my existing network in France, so it is a great opportunity to come and work in a studio at KARST.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anna Boland’s current research is focused on dystopian fiction, notions of invisible environments and worlds, post pandemic existence and the air we breathe. Anna explores the unseen; the time and space in-between; making the invisible visible; and creating possibilities of what it may look like if we could see the invisible around us.

Anna says, “I’m looking forward to being part of KARST’s growing artist community. Moving into one of the new studios will provide me with the much needed space to develop and expand my practice exploring immersive environments through sculpture and digital media.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jacqui Hallum makes paintings on unstructured fabrics and paper which are installed in complex and sensitive arrangements, often in multiple layers, with surfaces hitched back, folded or draped to reveal and conceal colour areas or fragments of transcribed images. Recent exhibitions include Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, Kingsgate Project Space, London and Exeter Phoenix. In 2018 Jacqui won the John Moores Painting Prize and in 2020 a book documenting five years of exhibitions was published by Anomie / Kingsgate Project Space. Between 2003 and 2005 Jacqui served on the committee of GENERATORprojects, Dundee and in 2010 she co-founded the peripatetic exhibition project LIDO. Jacqui is currently making a site-based work for a ward at Torbay hospital with Hospital Rooms and planning a mobile garden for a London project space.

Jacqui says, “Following many years of working from a home studio, the chance to join a busy community offers the chance to meet artists and feel connected to the broader Plymouth art scene.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Milnes is an artist, researcher and curator. He has exhibited internationally including at: Gyeonggi International Biennale – Korea, AND/OR – London, The Centre for Contemporary Art Laznia – Gdansk, and W139 – Amsterdam. Milnes’ work was recently selected for CONTROL:21 | FORMAT International Photography Festival and Illuminate 2021. Milnes is a lecturer in Fine Art at Plymouth College of Art, and is the curator and founder of the online platform Digital Artist Residency.

Milnes has recently been awarded a Green Minds commission, where he will be working on a project utilising the augmented reality potential of Microsoft Hololens to envisage an imaginary vision of Plymouth based on native flora and fauna. The work will be visible via a tour/walk in locations within the city in the summer.

Tom says “I’m really excited to be part of the KARST community with so many fantastic artists and arts professionals. It’s great to be part of the legacy of the one of the South-west’s leading artist-led spaces.”

 

 

Examining what it means to be a body in an unstable world and how this might be responded to through alternate cosmologies, Laura Roberston uses sculptural installation and events as a means of embracing the incomprehensible — employing humour and the irrational to dismantle hierarchies and entertain thought beyond the seemingly impossible.

Papier-mache and ceramics are combined with fancy dress accessories — a sphinx sculpture wears a wig and fluffy wings. Bodies, memes, mythological icons and household objects are blended into prop like forms, characters and costumes; allowing for multiple people and objects to overlap as protagonists of the same story.

Laura is currently working on an install for Gallery 333 at Exeter Pheonix and a 3D video project to be shown at Market Hall in Plymouth later in 2022.

Laura says, “I’m excited to be a part of the energy and ambition of KARST’s community — rocket fuel to take to the studio!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alexis Soul-Gray lives and works in Devon. She is currently studying for an MA Painting at Royal College of Art in London. Alexis has held lecturing positions in universities, worked as an independent curator and is a 2021 recipient of The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for Painting and Drawing.

Through painting, collage, assemblage and printmaking Alexis explore ideas of nurture, dereliction and the mother archetype in relation to trauma. Speculative questioning about the memorial, nostalgia and commemoration brings together a conjecture of imagery taken from public archival materials.

She is currently working towards her first international solo shows and has a residency at Exeter Phoenix gallery throughout February.

Alexis says, “I’m excited to be part of the KARST community, I think this is going to be such a positive experience being part of this important cultural city again, re-connect with Plymouth friends and colleagues..and make some new connections!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liam Symes is a contemporary painter currently based in Plymouth.Whilst proceeding through his studies, Liam began developing his ideas through painting, consequently engaging more extensively with other painters and finding inspiration from contemporary painters of today. Following completion of his degree in Fine Art in 2013, Liam decided to continue his practice and explore themes which evoke concepts of memory, isolation and serenity. These are some of the ongoing themes present in his work today.

Liam says, “I am thrilled to be joining a community which encourages artistic experimentation, along with regular developmental discussions regarding my practice.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cam Williamson is a a non-binary artist who uses paint and print to explore social spaces. Using their own working-class experiences, Cam aims to represent the social and spatial identity of poorly represented classes. Cam largely paints on found materials, often recreating the space and context in which it was found. Motivated by the social ownership of space, Cam’s artwork rejects ideas of private ownership of public areas.

Cam says, “I am excited to join KARST’s community, and to work alongside other creatives. I look forward to freely exchanging ideas with other artists.”

 

British Art Show 9 will focus on migration when it reaches Plymouth next year, speaking to the city’s longstanding maritime history and its role in colonisation.

The show’s overall themes are Healing, Care and Reparative History; Tactics for Togetherness, and Imagining New Futures, all agreed on before the Covid-19 pandemic and the global recognition of racial injustice sparked by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The curators say the themes have now become even more relevant and urgent in the present moment.

Hayward Touring curator Brian Cass said: “British Art Show 9 takes the temperature of Britain between the previous iteration of the show in 2016 – when the country voted in favour of leaving the European Union, and today – with the implications of Covid-19 still unfolding.”

After opening in Aberdeen in July 2021, British Art Show 9 tours to Wolverhampton and Manchester before arriving in Plymouth in October 2022. The exhibition will change with and adapt to each of its four host cities as a cumulative experience, presenting different combinations of artists and artworks that respond to their distinctive local contexts.

KARST Head of Creative Programme Ben Borthwick said: “Plymouth has long been celebrated as a city that looks out to the world, where journeys that have reshaped our knowledge of the world were launched. BAS9’s focus on migration, climate change and colonisation is a fantastic opportunity to situate how local histories are implicated in this global context.”

Almost half of the artists will be producing new work for the show. Two artists creating work for the Plymouth iteration have been announced: Alberta Whittle and Cooking Sections.

Alberta Whittle explores the legacies of slavery and racial injustice. Her work, Hindsight is a luxury you cannot afford (2021) was commissioned by Hayward Gallery Touring and The Box for British Art Show 9 and made possible with Art Fund support.

Cooking Sections use a combination of art, architecture and ecology to address urgent issues concerning food and climate. Their work will form part of the programme of creative learning and participation in Plymouth, with the support of Arts Council England’s Project Grant for National Activities.

Cooking Sections’ project will also be presented during the first leg of the tour in Aberdeen, where the artist duo will continue their collaboration with local people from the Scottish islands Skye and Raasay to develop programmes that counteract the devastating effects of the salmon farming industry.

Alongside its physical locations, British Art Show 9 will also exist digitally. Its newly launched website will act as a fifth location, which the curators describe as key to connecting the cities and extending the show’s reach. This digital space will offer artists the opportunity to show works across a range of media and formats.

A film programme featuring a selection of films will be shown on a rolling basis in each of the four host cities and online, expanding the selection of works and on view.

BAS9 is curated by Irene Aristizábal and Hammad Nasar who say: “The show appears at a precarious moment in Britain’s history, which has brought politics of identity and nation, concerns of social, racial, and environmental justice, and questions of agency to the centre of public consciousness. The artists presented in the exhibition will respond in critical ways to this complex context. Through their works, they imagine new futures, propose alternative economies, explore new modes of resistance and find ways of living together. They do so through film, photography, painting, sculpture, and performance and through multimedia projects that don’t sit easily in any one category.”