The UpStAiRs Gallery ASAT art exhibition

Art & Theatre / Business Editorials / Events in Norfolk and Suffolk / exhibitions / Norfolk Broads / Tourist Attractions Norfolk and Suffolk March 3, 2009

The UpStAiRs Gallery Beccles
www.bigartgallery.co.uk

New arts exhibition at our award winning gallery
Open view invitation

The Association of Suffolks Art Teachers
will be showing a selection of over 200 artworks

at The UpStAiRs Gallery

Open view: 7.30 – 9.30 This Friday March 6th

This is a wonderful opportunity to view personal works from those that teach in Suffolks educational systems.

Meet the artists and make connections.
Exhibition runs 3rd March – 28th March

Quite often we are influenced in the arts by those that teach us in our educational systems, but rarely do we have the opportunity to view teachers own personal works. ASAT was formed within education many years ago to support art and design, and this is the newest exhibition of their works all in one award winning venue. 20 arts teachers in Suffolk, throughout the galleries with over 60 works to include installation, textile, painting and ceramics – one not to miss!

Please reply to the gallery manager
Michelle Payne 01502 717191

No Frills Art

Neil Hanger is a one-man production line. He makes objects which might, at a first glance, appear to be made by machine but upon closer inspection are made by hand. He chooses materials which come from an industrial age, which have a no-frills quality, as if he were deliberately turning away from the romance and esoteric nature of art materials. He uses words like ‘democratic’ to describe the functionality and cheapness, which in itself is a move away from the ‘high art’ sense of expensive art materials and equipment. This is the stuff which we see in the world around us, which is functional and utilitarian. The objects are reminiscent of packaging and the pieces of the manufactured world which we usually discard but which Neil chooses to pick up and examine. He seems to be playing with a visual language of usefulness in completely use-less things. Things which have no function – this takes the viewer directly to the heart of what is art making. For these are not industrial by-products but have been made with precision by the hand of the artist.

The Dreams I’ve Seen Lately Keep Turning Out the Same (Oak with Mirror) 2009
Corrugated card with sticky-backed plastic 20 x 20 x 20 cm

For Neil Hanger the choice of cardboard and plastic is a way of creating freedom from the necessary choices in making art. If you have a pile of cardboard, he asks, what can you do with it? How much, or how little do you have to do to make it art? Why does an object become art? He is exploring the process and the point at which something might be considered an art object. He questions the status of the art object. Neil is inspired by artists like Alan Charlton, who has explored the nature of functional materials, making stretchers in 2”x 4” for grey paintings on a nine to five basis for years. Neil states that if you remove the many possible choices and keep working with the basics you can really begin to explore the nature of the stuff you are using and become free to engage with the aesthetic which emerges from the material. The potential of the material is realised and the image begins.

The Dreams I’ve Seen Lately Keep Turning Out the Same (Triple Centre Hollow) 2009
Corrugated card 20 x 20 x 20 cm

Often creators state that the objects they make, be they paintings, sculpture or inter-disciplinary, have a life of their own. Many of hanger’s box constructions are made as a series; they follow logical and mathematical progressions which form series, one pattern leading to another. Sometimes the series are complete; sometimes they could explore a theme to infinity. The serial nature of his production means that there is rarely a finite, rarefied, singular art object, as the focus constantly shifts to the next in the series. The moment of revelation is constantly deferred. Once begun each number in the series has to be made. Neil’s sketch book is made of graph paper and his drawings look like the workings of a construction engineer. The resulting series engage the mind at a deep level like music. The aesthetic is more like the logic of music in the sense that we often know what is coming next, where the tunes is going and have a sense of how it will end.

Marina Levington 2009

News for 2009

Events Venue: Are you a business that would like to hire our gallery to showcase or launch your product, we are a large but friendly arts space and can provide staff and glass hire for your event. For all enquiries contact the gallery manager on 01502 717191