Radical Residency VI®

Working Studios15 June—10 July 2021

Exhibition15—31 July 2021

Bookings Tuesday—Saturday, 11am—5pmvia this link

So very exciting to have a return to regular programming and bring one of our favourite initiatives back to life — the Radical Residency® VI is on! We are happy to announce the continuation of this amazing programme:

Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop is again hosting artists for the sixth instalment of the Radical Residency®, the exciting and dynamic initiative that welcomes 10 artists from all over the world to work side by side in a large communal studio for one month after which we curate an exhibition from the re-sults of this intense experience. The working studio time is also open and seen as a living exhibition, inviting the public during opening hours to engage with the artists at work. This is an unmissable opportunity for visitors to witness 12 artists working on site, including founder Stacie McCormick and current Solo Resident Stephen Burke.

The 10 places have been awarded to a multi-disciplined group of artists from 5 different countries: Matthew Dowell (UK), Stefano Giordano (Italy/UK), Noel Hensey (UK), Sam Hodge (UK), Laura Hudson (UK), Noa Ironic (Israel), Liam Mertens (New Zealand), Ally Rosenberg (UK), Diana Savostaite (Lithuania/UK) and Alexandra Searle (UK).

Working Studios15 June—10 July 2021

Exhibition15—31 July 2021

Bookings Tuesday—Saturday, 11am—5pmvia this link

1 Bard Road, London W10 6TP info@unit1gallery-workshop.com+44 (0)75 4831 5800 unit1gallery-workshop.com

Alexandra SearleCling 2019Glass55 x 35 x 15 cm

(previous page)Alexandra SearleIn A Slump2019Glass, steel, cod liver oil 45 x 45 x 12 cm

Alexandra Searle (born 1992) is a sculptor based in London. After studying Fine Art at Newcastle University graduating in 2015, she went on to complete an MFA in Fine Art Sculpture from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2019 where she was awarded the Nan-cy Balfour Scholarship and the Henriques Scholarship Prize. She was awarded the Slade Summer School Art Education Residency upon graduation. In 2020 she was shortlisted for the ACS Studio Prize and was a finalist in the Ingram Prize 2020. Recent exhibitions include After Hours (Bow-es-Parris Gallery, London, 2020), Public Notice (London, 2020), Futures 2020 (Mall Galleries, London, 2020), Perhaps We Should Have Stayed (Warbling Collective, London, 2019), Studio Visit (No 20 Arts, London, 2019), NOW: New Original Work (Gerald Moore Gallery, London, 2019), TEASER (Royal College of Art, London, 2019), and Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2018). She was the joint winner of the BBA Artist Prize, Berlin, in 2018. Upcoming exhibitions include Hot Air (Bad Art Presents and Berlin Treptow Ateliers, Berlin) and Floorr Ex 06 (Floorr Magazine online exhibition).

Drawing on references to the mental and the medical from my own experiences with anxiety and hypochondria, and the disquiets of our time, my sculptures play upon the tensions, fragilities and failures involved when trying to keep ourselves in a delicate equilibrium, both in body and mind. Familiar at a visceral level, my sculptures are concerned with too-muchness – when substances and materials reflect our fears or desires, and in the process, become unmanageable, uncontainable or gluttonous, escaping from their restraints in bulges of protest. Combining the industrial and solid with the fragile and decaying, I am chiefly inspired by the behavior of materials themselves; concrete recalls its former liquidity, or consumable liquids rot over time. I examine the medicines and mechanisms we utilise in our attempts, in desper-ation or gluttony, to satisfy and mend our bodies. The visceral apprehension or empathy we may feel for the works as they collapse, rot or deflate is my attempt to bring life, and inevitably death, into my materials.

Ally RosenbergSome Compliments Aren’t Worth Accepting2020Papercrete, reconstituted foam, silicone, earth pigments, steel hinge120 x 60 x 70 cm

(previous page)Ally RosenbergAs a Fact of Matter I, II, III, IV, V, VIMarble, expanding foam, polystyrene, lacquered paint60 x 90 x [variable]cm

Ally Rosenberg is a London-based artist from Manchester, primarily working in sculpture. His work takes an irreverent look at the body, slicing and casting materials with a structural quality that reveal a relationship between im-age and object. After graduating from Central St. Martins, he took an academic detour into cognitive neuroscience, completing an MSc at UCL and a residency at Harvard’s neuro-im-aging lab. This period of research, looking at the interface of anatomical structure and conscious experience, through the multiple planes of MRI images, certainly influenced Ally’s recent sculptural work. The disquieting experience of being confronted with one’s own fragile materiality, along with one’s own fragile perceptions, is a source of humour in his work.

A playful, pseudo-anatomical approach to sculp-ture sees my recent work using flattened, flat-pack-able, or inflated forms, where bodily shapes are sliced or cast. On a material level, colour and im-age are inherent, revealed in cross-section, rather than only as surface properties. The result is work that is both structural and cartoonish; ironic and ambivalent. Drawing upon references from ana-tomical textbooks, pop-up diagrams and my back-ground in neuroscience and MRI imaging research, the work aims to look at our perception of our own bodily object-hood as sitting in an awkward place between two and three dimensions.

Diana SavostaiteUntitled2021Mixed medium on canvas199 x 191 x 4 cm

(previous page)Diana SavostaiteForest2020-2021Oil on canvas294 x 242 x 2 cm

Diana Savostaite (b.1983) is a Lithuanian born painter now living and working in London. She uses oil paint as her primary medium to create expressive, colourful, semi-abstract paintings. Diana is a graduate of Vilnius Acad-emy of Arts in Lithuania, where she achieved a BA in Fine Arts/Painting.Diana’s work explores her personal relation with the closest surroundings and nature, whilst continuously experimenting with unusual canvas shapes and incorporating different mediums.Diana has had several solo shows and her work has been selected for many group exhibitions across the UK. Latest exhibitions include Summer Exhibition at Royal Academy of Arts (2020), Sunny Art Prize at Sunny Art Centre (2020) and much more. Her artworks are often chosen for various online exhibitions and auctions. In 2020 Diana won an artist’s open call with Colle’s Gallery (Leeds, UK) and has been awarded a solo exhibition. In 2017 she was awarded with Winsor and Newton Young Artist Award while exhibiting her work in Mall Gal-leries (London, UK).

My paintings are semi-abstract, colourful and expressive. They combine lots of colour tones (from light and airy to dark and gloomy), a variety of brush strokes and linear figurative drawing. I use oil paint as a primary medium alongside other mediums such as spray paint, pastel, pigments or acrylics. The painting process is especially important to me. I love using rich and deep colours, expressive movement of the brush and accidental marks. I begin my artwork by applying thin and transparent colour washes, follow it with texture and bold brush strokes, then finish it by adding any detailed touches. I am inspired by my closest surroundings, observation of daily experiences, nature, and occasional sound meditation. I like fo-cussing on my body senses whilst being in a relaxed position and surrounded by nature or at home. In my artwork, I am interested in expressing my own personal connection with the outer world. In my latest work, I experiment with irregularly shaped canvases, combine them together in a various way so paintings interconnect with each other and tell a visual story on the wall. This practice allows me to break free from the traditional painting format or rules, and encourages me to constantly search for my own authentic way of expression. Through this, I discovered an interesting combination between painting and shape. I choose to build my own canvas frames because it gives me the sense of individuality and complete accomplishment of my ideas.

Laura HudsonTaking Care of It2020Black gesso, spray paint and oil crayon80 x 110 cm

(previous page)Laura Hudson The White Knight is Walking Backwards 2019Oil and charcoal on canvas 450 x 200 cm

Laura Hudson is a trans-disciplinary artist with a background in experimental film, edible horticulture and digital technologies. A gradu-ate of Glasgow School of Art’s Environmental Art Department Laura went on to study artist’s film at Central St. Martins before working as a curator and promoter of film and new media arts.  Returning to her own practice in 2016 she completed her studies in 2019, graduating with Distinction in MA Fine Art from City and Guilds of London Art School. Laura’s work is now held in private collections across Europe, USA and the UK; including the Ruth Borchard Next Generation Collection. In 2020 she was commissioned as Artist in Residence at the Alan Davie Gallery, Hertford, and will be pub-lishing her Book of Jings! in response to the renowned Scottish painter in 2021.

Her current practice is revelatory; inspired by the Situationist Dérive she draws to get to the under-side of things, drift drawing or doodling to tap into the unconscious mind in order to connect the metamemorial dots.Concerned with the politics of (mis)information and how we encounter ‘otherness’ her doodles act as triggers for paintings, duplic-itous narratives that are often darkly humorous, occasionally premonitory and at times scripted with political intent; they function for the artist as snow poles in a blizzard. In Laura’s work; masks, helmets and goggles feature as bodily augmenta-tions to human faces while hope might be found in the hybrid-creatures and aliens sent to relieve us humans of duty.

Liam MertensBrains park2021Acrylic on canvas200 x 180 cm

(previous page)Liam MertensLongest drink in BoomytownAcylic on canvas153 x 127 cm

Liam Mertens (b.1991, Blenheim, NZ) is currently based in London, UK – where he completed an MA in Painting at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2019). Liam explores the notion of presence and absence in relation to home through the medium of painting. He was part of New Contemporaries 2020. Recent exhibitions include New Contemporaries 2020, South London Gallery, London, UK (2021), Still Here, Newington Gallery, London, UK (2019), neo:artprize2019, Bolton Art Gallery, Bolton, UK (2019), Orbit Art Graduates Show, OXO Tower, London, UK (2019), Creekside Open, A.P.T. Gallery, London, UK (2019) and Distant Heres, The Stone Space, London, UK (2019).

My work is influenced by popular culture, advertis-ing language and colour theory. Simplicity is at the core, as I depict memories of the everyday through a cinematic lens. Cultural similarities between New Zealand and the UK create complicated memories for me, as these experiences cross over and became embedded in new spaces. In the studio, I tap into moments from my past through researching music, advertisements, films, cultural events, and art from New Zealand. The personal moments that come to the fore through this process are of the everyday, however, the emotional weight has shifted, and it is this that I attempt to capture through making.

Matthew DowellChippy Fork

(previous page)Matthew DowellA Day Out at Roker

Matthew Dowell (b.1994, Sunderland, UK) has a research based practice working across the expanded fields of print, performance, and sculpture. He studied Fine Art at Kingston School of Art (2013-16) and Print at the Royal College of Art (2018-2020) where he received the Augustus Martin Print Prize. He was short-listed for the Gillian Dickinson North East Young Sculpture (2019) and is the recipient of the Stanley Picker Print Tutorship (2021). Recent exhibitions include Artworks Open at the Barbican Arts Group Trust (2020), London Grads at the Saatchi Gallery (2020), Graduate Show at Kristin Hjellegjerde (2020), Beyond the Frame at Orleans House Gallery (2020) and In Review at Southwark Park Galleries (2020).

Matthew Dowell has a research based practice working across the expanded fields of print, per-formance, and sculpture. He is interested in how we define, occupy a place; responding to specific sites he adopts anthropological models of working through exploring social histories and recording signifiers of place: street and welcome signs, map-ping, and walking tours. He creates his own forms from these that visually replicate the norm but on second glance have marked differences to what is expected.  Balancing at the intersection of past and present the work aims to act as a trigger to insti-gate conversations, helping people to move through and look at place through a new lens.

Noa Ironicgolden hour2020Oil on linen160 x 140 cm

(previous page)Liam Mertensfull of myself 2020Oil on linen170 x 150 cm

I am Noa Ironic (1993). I grew up in Israel in an orthodox Jewish household, went to an all-girl orthodox school till I was 13. After my parents separated in 2001 my mother became nonreligions and so did I, although I never truly considered myself a religious person. A bit after I turned 13 I ended the relationship with my father and later on changed my family name, what at the age of 17 felt like a very liberating act. My mother was a stained-glass artist and teacher, I grew up in her studio since school wasn’t my cup of tea at the time. I managed to avoid serving in the army mirac-ulously, so at 20 I tried out for art school and started my studies at Shenkar college the next semester. Before art school I painted and drew for years on a daily basis, but in the first two years of my degree I tried to find myself in oth-er mediums and it wasn’t a good fit. I finished my BFA exactly a year ago, a fully committed painter and part time sculptor. School taught me a lot but I’m ready for the next stage of my career actually happening.

Painting to me is everything. I know its cliché for a painter to say that but its true. Ever frame in a movie, every interaction on the street, the way the light hits the plants in my apartment, jokes and puns, everything I experience is a thought about painting. In my practice I try to manipulate the boundaries of the medium by using assisting objects like tiles, sculptures, mirrors ext... to be able to not only experience the painting hanging on the wall but also reusing its qualities in reflections, cut outs and games. All of the humoristic and groutesc elements inside the painting I try to bring into the space. Not because the painting is not powerful enough by itself, but to broaden the possibilities the viewer can experience, a fully immersive journey. My high concern of the viewers playful experience comes from my will to truly be able to share the true joy I have for painting, a child like excitement we as adults cannot always feel. Color choices and form give us as painters the option to present imag-ery and ideas that are sad or alarming in a vibrant fun way, such manipulation of the mind is a power only the very few professions in life obtain, I feel the obligation to make the most out of it.

Noel HenseyThe Definition

(previous page)Noel HenseySelf-Portrait As A Boxer

Noel Hensey (b. Dublin, 1977) is currently based in Co. Kildare, Ireland. He graduated with a MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts in 2010. He is a multi-disciplinary concept artist working primarily in installation, photography, sculpture, sound and video. His art practice is concerned with philosophical exploration balanced with some humour. Selected exhibitions include: ‘Verloren Und Gefunden’, SomoS, Berlin, ‘Homage’, Peak, London, ‘Jammed Into A Paradox’, 601 Artspace, New York, 2020; ‘Creekside Open’, A.P.T. Gallery, London, 2019; ‘Fields Of Wheat’, Transmission, Glasgow, 2017; ‘7th Berlin Biennale For Contemporary Art’, Berlin, 2012 and ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, Site Gallery and S1 Artspace, Sheffield and the I.C.A., London, 2011. His awards include; The Arts Council of Ireland ‘Visual Arts Bursary Award’, 2020, Kildare Co. Co. ‘Emerging Visual Artist Award’, 2011 and the Chelsea Arts Club Trust’s ‘Special Projects Award’, 2009.

My art practice is concerned with philosophical exploration balanced with some humour.More specifically, it is concerned with ’openness’, which could be defined as unobstructed perception or meaning. The motivation for the practice is to change and liberate any obscuration’s (cognitive or emotional) to this openness. The main theme within the work is the perceptive dynamics of encountering found objects and situations whereby the viewer’s habitual semantic/judgmental processes are slowed or stopped. My practice is multi-disciplinary and includes; print, photography, installation, sculp-ture, sound and video. I use methods that comple-ment the theoretical framework of the practice including: assemblage; appropriation (specifically re-interpretation and re-contextualisation); using a combination of optical hardware and software along with traditional mediums, interchanging mediums and site-specific work. The practice is inspired by Buddhist practices and philosophies, and by concept and pop art.

Sam HodgePelagic Plastic 112019 Photopolymer etching,white ink on black paper 49 x 36 cm

(previous page)Sam HodgeCarboniferous 8 (detail)2021Pigment from Thames coal in gum arabic on Arches paper with collage of coal+acrylic medi-um monoprint on Japanese tissue37 x 29 cm

Sam Hodge is a painter and printmaker based in London. Before becoming a visual artist, she studied natural sciences at Cambridge University and then Painting Conservation at the Courtauld Institute. Sam’s work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibi-tions in London, Europe and Canada, Most notably: Doom and Bloom (2019 Contem-porary Art Society) As the Crow Flies (2019 Bo.Lee Gallery), Vital Matter (2019 solo show at Muse Gallery) By The Way (2019, Lewish-am Arthouse, London) Hack The Barbican (Barbican Centre 2013) In Residence (2017 Griffin Gallery, London) and The Story so Far (2017, Snap Gallery, Vancouver, Canada). She has been selected for opens and prize short-lists including; RA Summer Exhibition (2019 and 2015), Wells Art Contemporary (2018, Wells, Somerset), International Print Biennale (2016 Newcastle) and Creekside Open (2015, APT Gallery, London) Residencies include; Groundwork group residency (2020 APT Gallery, London), Merchant House Residency, (2019 Symi, Greece), Investigating Artist (2017, Welcome Collection), Griffin Gallery project based residency (2017, Colart Studios, Lon-don), Studio 4 residency (2013, Chisenhale Art Place, London. Her artist’s book has been acquired by several public collections includ-ing MoMA and The Met, New York.

She finds emergent patterns of growth and disin-tegration in paint and print processes that echo those found in geological or biological systems or she observes the transformation by environmental forces of human-made objects into ambiguous, an-imate forms. Both of these strands of work explore human entanglements with the material world and our reactions to its shifting and unstable nature. She often makes her own pigments, paints and inks from found materials such as earth, plants and the detritus left by human activity. This connects her work directly to the geological, biological and human stories embodied in the landscapes that she has walked through. 

Stefano GiordanoG_ost2020Oil, oil stick, acrylic and dirt on canvas56 x 66 cm

(previous page)Stefano GiordanoParole (Words) (detail)2020Oil, oil stick and dirt on canvas180 x 220 cm

Stefano Giordano grew up in Cologne Monz-ese, Italy. He’s been based in London since 2010. In 2020 he graduated from City&Guilds of London Art school. Recent shows include Final, Not Over , a group show at Unit1Gallery London, A High Hang at Eccleston Project Space in 2020. He was Shortlisted for the Skin-ner’s Company/ Phillip Connard Travel Award in 2019 and for the Painter Stainer Scholarship in 2018.

Through an investigation into the language of painting, my works seek to imitate life, not as imag-es, but as objects presenting a painted surface. Play-ing with popular imagery and recognisable every-day iconography, my work tries to connect directly with the viewer and the same time, to offer a sense-lessness which breaks that connection. Acts of nega-tions such as, painting on the studio’s floor where the dirt is picked up by the canvas, deliberate dumb ways of making marks and the use of raw canvas which creates a sense of unfinished-ness, enable the work to turn away from the idea of “strong paint-ings”, hence reinventing painting and its infinite possibilities. The results are often pathetic, with a sense of humour and ambiguity. Visible brushstrokes and pentimenti contribute to the feeling of suspend-ed time, as the seemingly unresolved painting is left to be completed, the meaning to unfold in the viewer’s mind, who becomes an essential part in the interpretative process. The history of painting is an important part of my practice, so references to art-ists are visible in my paintings, from the primitive to the modern to the contemporary. Each mark, made accidentally or consciously, is an event and a record of the process, inviting chance to be part of a playful and democratic studio practice.

1 Bard Road, London W10 6TP info@unit1gallery-workshop.com+44 (0)75 4831 5800 unit1gallery-workshop.com

Working Studios15 June—10 July 2021

Exhibition15—31 July 2021

Bookings Tuesday—Saturday, 11am—5pmvia this link