British Council presents visual art from the UK

Out Of Nowhere exhibition curated by Martin Barlow

We have worked in partnership with Artisterium for seven years. Every year we present the best of the contemporary visual artists and curators from the UK to Georgian audiences. This time we support three of the seven Welsh artists with the extraordinary Out Of Nowhere exhibition curated by Martin Barlow.

From 7 to 17 November 2014, Artisterium offers participants and audiences the opportunities to reflect on personal, artistic, philosophical, social, political, environmental problems or even the issues which have not yet occurred. British Council has worked in partnership with Artisterium for seven years. Every year they present the best of the contemporary visual artists and curators from the UK to Georgian audiences. This time the council support three of the seven Welsh artists with the extraordinary Out Of Nowhere exhibition curated by Martin Barlow.

Bedwyr Williams, Fern Thomas, Craig Wood, Lois Williams, Sean Edwards, Peter Finnemore and Sue Williams in Out Of Nowhere clearly demonstrate their individual approach towards the problems and conceptual forms. The exhibition opens at 18:00 on Saturday, 8 November, 51 Uznadze Street.

Martin Barlow says, ‘the title playfully suggests that in life, problems large and small, global and personal always seem to arrive unexpectedly, to hit us without warning, to come ‘out of nowhere’. Out Of Nowhere also has a more personal meaning: the exhibition comes ultimately from a completely chance encounter between the two curators (WatoTsereteli and myself) in Tbilisi in 2001. That is, it is a result thirteen years later of a meeting which came ‘’out of nowhere’’. Even more playfully, Out of Nowhere is probably a good title for an exhibition of the work of seven artists from a small country of which few people have more than a very hazy notion: ‘Where?’ is usually the puzzled response to someone saying they are from Wales.

Bedwyr Williams presents a scenario of full post-disaster apocalypse, although a gross dystopian (dis)order quickly establishes itself out of the chaos. Fern Thomas evokes the related poles of destruction and creation, the violence sometimes inherent to them, and our ambivalent relationship to them. Craig Wood subtly suggests the way the effects of ‘big’ geopolitics across countries and continents eventually impact in some way to disrupt our ‘small’ domestic lives. Lois Williams looks at that domestic life from a different perspective, hinting at the melancholy struggle against non-fulfilment, loss and death which behind the everyday objects of home which we gather around our lives, are part of the human condition. Sean Edwards’s work embodies the problems the artist addresses while making art itself in the complex relationships of studio to gallery space, materials and process to finished art work, and art work to audience. Peter Finnemore creates a microcosm of the wider world in his own garden, using anarchic humour to illuminate themes ranging from global conflict to the absurdities of our existence. Sue Williams explores the deeply problematic construction of identity, and particularly the construction of ‘femininity’, in a so-called post-feminist world where the realities of personality and relationship are corroded by late-capitalism’s culture of consumerism and celebrity.

Visitors will see sculptures and installations, paintings and drawings, videos and photography, all illustrating the wide variety of conceptual bases artists in the UK get inspiration from.

The British Council is the UK’s leading international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. It operates in more than 100 countries worldwide. The British Council builds relationships and understanding between people in Britain and other countries to increase trust between the nations and appreciation of the UK’s ideas and achievements overseas. www.britishcouncil.org