Sex and Success in Sussex
JUDE MONTAGUE
A group exhibition brought together by friends, beneath this controversial but playful title, follows last year’s Spirit of Invention show which responded to John Logie Baird’s inventiveness. These multi-artist extravaganzas build on a collective arts community that exhibited together in London in underground car parks throughout the 2010s and at the Venice Biennale fringe, an experimental group practice curated by Vanya Balogh, and here in Hastings by Danny Pockets.
Some of the artists participating in this strange and far-reaching expressive show include Leah Germann (many of whose paintings dramatically interpret domestic situations, and who will be exhibiting with the group for the first time) and Jim Roseveare, who had an in-depth exhibition in 2022 at the blackShed Gallery and whose work is monumental and playful. He works with materials drawing on his own vocational life in arboriculture.
The theme allows artists to explore ideas of culture, identity, satire, and the overwhelming representations and arguments of modern life, in a personal, non-political context. Joyful and colourful pieces crowd together in a contemporary salon, and the hang of forty artists draws on the jostle of the Royal Academy Exhibitions. A great freedom is offered to the artists, although there is minimal audio-visual and performance, encouraging conversations around the 2D and 3D works.
Caroline Gregory and Julia Maddison are two key artists who have been working as part of the team from the beginning, and who are now based in St Leonards. Julia Maddison adapts found pieces and is often looking back, dealing with loss and absence, but she has a humour that makes even her vulnerable pieces somewhat robust. She has been looking at women of old Sussex and some of their more taboo life experiences, with images of castration and prostitution.
The title is a tongue-catcher and obviously also a little titillating. It should move artists outside their comfort zone and enable them to embrace new aspects of their own work. The show should build community in the Arts and help those of us driven apart in lockdown to reconvene in a positively-charged group show, together expressing ourselves through our work.
Everyone is invited to the open event on Friday 30 May, 6pm-8pm. Electro Studios Project Space, Friday 30 May – Sun 1 June
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