Spike Island presents:
Mark Lewis: Howlin Wolf
Mahali OHare: Kindling Wood
INTER Exchange: Helsinki to Bristol and back again
Olli Keränen, Terhi Heino, Tanja Koistila, Karen Di Franco, Toby Huddlestone, John Lawrence & Lisa Scantlebury
April 06-May 27, 2007
Spike Island: centre for the production and exhibition of contemporary visual art. A national flagship project, a £2.25m refurbishment designed with architects Caruso St John, has just been completed.
From April 06 May 27 2007 Spike Island presents three exhibitions by Mark Lewis, Mahali OHare and seven artists who have set up an exchange between Spike Island and Finland.
In 2007 the Residency Programme will host: Ruth Claxton (UK), Can Alte (Turkey), Andre Sousa (Portugal), Sonia Boyce (UK), David Blandy (UK), Becky Shaw (UK).
Mark Lewis films are remarkable not only for their rich and highly seductive qualities, but also for their ability to undermine those characteristics that define mainstream and avant-garde cinema. The title of this exhibition, Howlin Wolf, is perfectly suggestive of a set for a horror movie. Lewis plays with this sense of anticipation, perhaps in a tribute to Hitchcock, a tendency which is evident in his other film works where something, somewhere, is almost certainly happening in the background. Spike Island is delighted to be showing a series of works by Mark Lewis that include Rear Projection (Molly Parker) and Rear Projection (Golden Rod), commissioned by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in partnership with the British Film Institute and Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo. These works were funded by Film London through the London Artists Film and Video Awards and Arts Council England. Other works have been made available courtesy of the artist and the Arts Council Collection.
Mahali OHare presents a series of new paintings in Kindling Wood. Her paintings are small. Their size that makes every minute detail vitally important, from the depth of the stretcher, to the edge and fold of the canvas. The way in which they are hung in the space does not instruct a narrative but implies connections between images, images that seem to have been painted somewhere beneath the surface of the paint. OHare is sparing with her information yet we know that each work has emerged from photography, not a large glamorous silky image but the slightly dog eared photograph that might be found in the pages of an old book. OHares paintings depict a certain way that we might remember things, distant yet intimate. Kindling Wood is a Spike Island commission and Mahali OHare is the first recipient of the Rootstein Hopkins Award.
INTER Exchange Helsinki to Bristol and back again, brings together the work of three artists from Helsinki and four artists from Bristol: Olli Keränen – Terhi Heino -Tanja Koistila – Karen Di Franco – Toby Huddlestone – John Lawrence – Lisa Scantlebury. After completing a research trip to Helsinki in February 2006, artist Toby Huddlestone worked with Karen Di Franco to develop this exchange initiative. The Finnish artists traveled to Bristol in March to develop a series of new works for exhibition through a period of residency. In May, the British group will travel to Finland where they will work in the Cable Factory in Helsinki and at Galleria Huuto. Throughout the process the artists will develop a programme of events, screenings and talks that will take place in various venues in each city. This project has been made possible through funding and support from FRAME, HIAP, Spike Island, STATION and Arts Council South West.
From May 04-07 2007 Spike Island presents the annual Open Weekend which gives the public access to over seventy studios accommodating a wide range of artists, including Eamon OKane, Mariele Neudecker, John Wood & Paul Harrison, Andrew Mania and many others.
Spike Island
133 Cumberland Road
Bristol BS1 6UX, UK