This website is the archive of the gallery WW Contemporary Art, which operated July 2008 - October 2016.
The SOLO Award™ and other activities are now managed by Chiara Williams Contemporary Art
Patio Projects
‘Patio Projects' is WW Gallery's rolling public art programme on view 24/7.
In 2011, WW held an open call inviting proposals for a series of provisional, site-specific, outdoor installations in the 6 square metre street-facing patio space at WW, 30 Queensdown Road. Selected artists were awarded a £100 bursary to assist them in the challenge of realising a public art work, on public view 24/7 for 28 days.
Public response to Patio Projects has been overwhelmingly positive and the works have engaged new art audiences, including local residents and children.
In 2011, WW held an open call inviting proposals for a series of provisional, site-specific, outdoor installations in the 6 square metre street-facing patio space at WW, 30 Queensdown Road. Selected artists were awarded a £100 bursary to assist them in the challenge of realising a public art work, on public view 24/7 for 28 days.
Public response to Patio Projects has been overwhelmingly positive and the works have engaged new art audiences, including local residents and children.
PP1: Eva Lis | Mudman back to top
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8th August - 30 September 2011
The first Patio Project Artist Eva Lis presented 'Mudman', 8th August - 30 September 2011, viewable 24/7 at 30 Queensdown Rd, E5 8NN. Clashing with the London riots when unveiled on Monday 8th August, Mudman had a close call as we reported in our August newsletter and the poignancy of Mudman's message received press coverage in The New York Observer, in FAD, in ArtLyst, and (rather sensationally given the image chosen for the article) in Art Daily. |
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PP2: Jessica Herrington | Power Object back to top
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3rd - 27th November 2011
The artist will add further elements to 'Power Object' on a weekly basis, and actively invites viewers to investigate the many hidden view-finders nestled in the sculpture's black cloth exterior. Herrington's work focuses on ideas of preciousness, value and excess and her new installation is an elaborate, shrine-like dreamcatcher, woven of glittery, colourful, visual ephemera, from wool and thread to charms, skulls and bones. Australian-born Herrington was WW's second artist in residence at the beginning of 2011, culminating in a sensational exhibition 'CAVE', click for more information, images and catalogue... |
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PP3: Lucy May | Three Hundred Pounds of Heavenly Joy back to top
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1st December 2011 – 29 January 2012
Inspired by the many kebab shops and Turkish Ocakbasi in the local area, Three Hundred Pounds of Heavenly Joy is a wry celebration of that iconic symbol of low culture, the doner kebab. Lucy May's works are fantastical hybrids of consumerist materiality and decorative style, portraying a grotesque yet seductive vision of the world. Signifiers of bad taste and low culture are fused with the grandeur and excess of the Baroque. The work revels in the tension between high art and vulgarity. Lucy May is a graduate of The Royal College of Art and The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. More info: www.lucymay.net Press: The Telegraph 28/11/2011 - 'The best things to do this week in London' - Lucy May's "Patio Projects #3: 'Three Hundred Pounds of Heavenly Joy' at WW Gallery. In what could well be a first, the exhibition has as its focus the humble, and much-derided, doner kebab." FURTHER INFO: DOWNLOAD PRESS RELEASE 
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PP4: Kirsty Tinkler | Face Off back to top
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2nd – 26th February 2012
As a mute dialogue between two buildings, Kirsty Tinkler's project ‘Face Off’ is based on the notion of how society is reflected in its architecture. The facade of the building and its typical Victorian bay window is reproduced as both mirror and architectural folly; the mise en scene creates a spectacular game in which the audience is an essential part: to be inside and outside of the building at the same time. Kirsty Tinkler is a sculpture graduate of the Royal College of Art, London. |
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PP5: Hanae Utamura | CONSTRUCT: Fountain back to top
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1st March – 1st April 2012
'What are we doing on earth, if not constructing something and deconstructing it at the same time...?" For Patio Projects #5, Hanae Utamura poses and responds to her own question, through a performance-based sculptural installation during the month of March. 'CONSTRUCT: Fountain' takes the form of an organic investigation; poured white plaster, shaped by the force of gravity, open to the interventions of the artist, the public and the elements. Utamura actively invites this disruption or damage, before re-forming the fountain, imitating the continual flux that drives man to simultaneously create and destroy and questioning notions of monumentality and permanence in public sculpture. Follow Hanae's progress on her blog. artist statement: “I contemplate the human condition on the move, in different circumstances such as urban or natural landscapes. My intervention in these spaces is a response to the site and is never rehearsed before action is held. Sometimes putting my life at risk in politically charged sites, the work exposes a negotiation of life and how life survives in its own system. I explore a form of spirit such as love, courage, belief, faith and let my work to evoke the condition of these spirits – the beautiful side of it as well as provoking its absurdity, futility and the violence of it. Everything moves in flux, and it seems that is the only universal condition of matters at all times.” Hanae Utamura Utamura is an MA graduate of Chelsea College of art and a current recipient of the Axis/Florence Trust Award. |
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PP6: Penny Sadubin | Urban Bluebells back to top
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5th - 29th April 2012
'April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain...' (T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land) 'Urban Bluebells' by Penny Sadubin is the 6th public art installation in WW Gallery's 'Patio Projects' series. As it yields its crop of delicate, native, woodland flowers in an artificial patio context, this temporary garden confronts us with a fleeting show of beauty, under threat of extinction (by Spanish bluebell cross-hybridisation and climate change) and almost destined to be a 'museum piece' of the future. On the last day of the exhibition, Sunday 29th April, the public is invited to help plant out the Bluebells when the artist donates them to nearby Hackney Downs. Australian born Penny Sadubin has lived and worked in London since 1996 and graduated from UNSW College of Fine Art in 1994. For more information, follow Penny's blog Landscape of Change. |
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PP7: Evy Jokhova | String-scape back to top
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3rd May – 3rd June 2012
With String-scape, Evy Jokhova weaves a representation of the urban landscape, drawing on the rich architectural legacy of the East End and traces of the city’s past. From the heavy bombing during the Blitz, to the modern regeneration of the 50s and 60s and the recent Olympic redevelopments, the weight of this history achieves lightness through a series of performances drawing in space with coloured string. Lying somewhere between a 3D model, a virtual mapping, and an architectural drawing, the work touches upon the disparity between the beauty of a plan and its day-to-day realisation. Jokhova is a multi disciplinary artist and bookmaker, widely exhibited in the UK and internationally, she is a graduate of the RCA, LCC and CSM. |
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PP8: Flora Parrott | 1000th back to top
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June 7th - 1st July 2012
Flora Parrott’s ‘1000th’ explores the futility inherent in those daily tasks and continual labours which remain perpetually unfinished. With her garland of 999 soap fingers, Parrott draws on the Buddhist story of Angulimala’s struggle to collect 1000 fingers. Despite extreme sacrifices and endless efforts, Angulimala was unable to complete his training as the fingers continued to rot. Parrott presents the viewer with an unnerving sense of frustration when faced with 1000th’s deliberate and provocative resistance of resolution. Through metaphor the work makes our contemporary condition and the dissatisfactions of modern working-life grotesquely tangible. Flora Parrott is an MA graduate at Royal College of Art and is represented by Tintype Gallery, London Artist statement: "I struggle to combine the properties of a particular experience, the shape and consistency of an object or the pace at which is moves. I become confused and find it hard to define whether I am identifying with smell, taste, touch, sight or hearing. This confusion is both compelling and frustrating. The work is drawn from a compulsion to explain a state of ‘being’, a state that is always evolving and changing. It is 3 dimensional collage in which instinctively chosen images and objects are arranged in a way that articulates a physical experience. All the work is made and displayed in an effort to understand and dissect these experiences; to clarify, examine and ‘pin down’ sensations that otherwise seem chaotic and incomprehensible." Read Hackney Citizen Review of Flora Parrott's Patio Project '1000th' Plus read recent interview with Flora Parrott & Aqnb: http://www.aqnb.com/2012/06/06/flora-parrott-interview |
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PP9: Andy Wicks | Beached back to top
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July 5th - 29th 2012
For Patio Project #9 Andy Wicks has created 'Beached', a towering sculptural assemblage and minimalist recreation of the mooring structures which can be found along the banks of our city's river. 'Beached' takes its initial inspiration from the visceral materiality of these wooden structures: which stained by weathering, rusted and rotten, evoke the history of the central artery of London’s trade industry. Metaphorically 'salvaged' from the beaches of the Thames, the driftwood of our forgotten industrial past finds itself re-imagined, stripped back, reassembled and beached on a domestic patio. Removed from its tide-washed context, and juxtaposed instead, with the architectural language of such residential anomalies as recycling bins, estate agent signs and trellis fencing. Erased of barnacles, ropes, algae and the other ephemera of its romantic riverside associations, 'Beached' becomes an inexplicable object in this residential landscape.Andy Wicks is a graduate of Fine Art from Middlesex University and was a recipient of the Florence Trust Award in 2010/2011.www.andywicks.co.uk |
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PP10: Kate Elliott | The Landscape back to top
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August 2nd - September 2nd 2012
'The Landscape' is a site-specific photo installation, forming part of the on-going public art project 'Time stands still when I think of you.' The project derives from an archive of over 100 found family photos, the earliest of which dates from the turn of the nineteenth century. For Patio Project #10 the focus shifts from specific events and familial relations, to the landscape. The relationship between the environments depicted in the photographs, and how they intercept with the urban landscape of Hackney Downs, the proximity of one affecting the reading of the other, is central to the piece. Kate Elliott is currently living and working in London as a freelance photographer and artist. Kate’s work has been published internationally and has been exhibited in numerous galleries, including the National Portrait Gallery, London, as part of the annual Photographic Portrait Award. Last year she was commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery to take a portrait for The World in London project, which is currently being exhibited in Victoria Park and on Oxford Street as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. You can see more images on Kate Elliott's blog. |
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PP11: Kate Davis & David Moore | PICA PICA back to top
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6 - 30 Sep 2012
The striking black and white magpies which roam the streets and parks of the city are the focus of Pica pica, taking its name from the genus of the European magpie. PP11 examines the significant presence of the magpie as a symbol in folklore and superstition, as well as its continual love of courting controversy. Its double-nature, as bearer of sorrow and fortune, is played upon in a sculpture which misleads at first glance, however this deception is a deliberate invitation for the viewer to look closer and re-evaluate. There are many misconceptions commonly held in various cultures relating to the magpie.In Britain and Ireland, there are a number of superstitions regarding magpies. A single magpie is associated with bad luck. One should make sure to greet magpies when they are encountered in order to either dispel bad luck or encourage good luck. In the British Isles a widespread traditional rhyme records the myth that seeing magpies predicts the future, depending on how many are seen. There are many regional variations on the rhyme, which means that it is difficult to come up with a definitive version. Here are two popular versions:
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One myth suggests that on seeing a single magpie one should pinch the person they are walking with and if you are alone you have to pinch yourself. In Scotland, a magpie near the window of the house foretells death and in a story possibly related to this, magpies were long despised for allegedly carrying a drop of Satan's blood under their tongues. But in reality magpies are believed to be among the most intelligent of animals: the European Magpie is one of the few animal species known to be able to recognize itself in a mirror. In the UK, the Magpie has long been associated with a habit of stealing or otherwise collecting shiny objects, however this belief has no evidence in wildlife studies. Their artwork plays on a number of these themes, we have created an image that shows a magpie coming in to land or hovering overhead. The image rotates so one can never be sure how many magpies one can see at any one time, if any at all, as the whole bird is never fully depicted. The artists have included a mirror to further confuse the counting of crows. If magpies are indeed attracted to shiny objects then the mirror pointed skyward might attract them.
In 2008 the sculptors Kate Davis & David Moore formed ME/WE Productions, and have since collaborated on a number of different projects. ME/WE have worked on projects in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Los Gazquez, Spain. They were short-listed for the Kendrew Commission at St John's College Oxford in 2010 and in 2011 their first film 'The Cut' was short-listed of the Swedenbourg Short Film Award. They are currently working on a series of ‘light and water' public works commissioned by the property developers St James and managed by Futurecity for the Riverlight Development in Nine Elms, London. The permanent works will be installed in 2014. Kate Davis is currently Tutor in Sculpture at RCA and external Examiner at UCS, Wimbledon (MA) and University of Sunderland. Kate Davis is represented by Fred [London].
David Moore is Head of Sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art at Edinburgh University.
In 2008 the sculptors Kate Davis & David Moore formed ME/WE Productions, and have since collaborated on a number of different projects. ME/WE have worked on projects in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Los Gazquez, Spain. They were short-listed for the Kendrew Commission at St John's College Oxford in 2010 and in 2011 their first film 'The Cut' was short-listed of the Swedenbourg Short Film Award. They are currently working on a series of ‘light and water' public works commissioned by the property developers St James and managed by Futurecity for the Riverlight Development in Nine Elms, London. The permanent works will be installed in 2014. Kate Davis is currently Tutor in Sculpture at RCA and external Examiner at UCS, Wimbledon (MA) and University of Sunderland. Kate Davis is represented by Fred [London].
David Moore is Head of Sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art at Edinburgh University.
PP12: Dolores de Sade | The Form of a Thing is the Outcome of All it Endures back to top
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October 4th - 28th 2012
For PP12 Dolores de Sade fills the WW Gallery’s patio space with a graveyard of mummified pigeons. Mummified with white cloth following instructions for the embalming of royalty by Thomas Greenhill in an Eighteenth Century document held in the Gordon Museum, King’s College and embalmed with sweet herbs, Dolores de Sade’s many hundreds of pigeons are at risk of taking on an unfamiliar symbolism. The rituals of death and mourning elevate the pigeons above their status as street-vermin. This mass-grave and memorial challenges our supposed knowledge and the authority of that knowledge. Dolores de Sade is a graduate of the RCA (MA Printmaking 2011) and is a widely exhibited artist whose work is held in private and public collections including V&A, Government Art Collection, British Library, Royal College of Art, Sir John Cass School of Art and Gaungdong Museum, China. The artist has created a limited edition etching to accompany this installation, available from WW Gallery, 34/35 Hatton Garden. |
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PP13: Stephanie Wehowski | Stupa back to top
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November 1st - December 31st 2012
Stephanie Wehowski's Patio Project #13, Stupa, exists beyond the reach of concrete definitions, instilling in the viewer a sense of awe and wonder. This large scale sculpture and installation inhabits a space in between fantasy and reality. The giant mushroom tower teeters on the brink of the surreal. Constructed from organic materials it is a form at once familiar, situated opposite Hackney Downs park where it could have grown naturally, and entirely alien. Wehowski's sculptures and installations have occupied parks and abandoned buildings, and draw on phenomenal philosophy. She was born in Germany and now lives and works in London. This is the last Patio Project in the series, but watch this space for news of the Patio Projects publication, to be launched in 2013 together with a special presentation of the accompanying multiple/ltd edition works we commissioned from each of the 13 artists in this programme |
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