Viewpoints

The Rooftop Collective exhibition edition VI

Tempus Fugit. So they say.

Here we are again, another Rooftop Collective exhibition is upon us.

In theory this should be Edition VI, after Edition V, our show at the Clerkenwell Gallery during photomonth 2016, but this year we have decided to shake to up a bit.

Inspired by an ongoing collaboration for a joint show with Annamarie Dzendrowdskyj and some scheming between Drucilla Burrell and myself for an up coming show we are planning, I suggested we invite artists to respond to the work of the collective.

And so ‘Viewpoints’ was born.

This has created a wonderful feeling of camaraderie and inspiration between artists and photographers as unexpected interpretations of existing ideas are brought to life, new work is created and dialogues started…

On top of this Anna McNay is curating – to have someone of such a calibre and reputation working with us has been truly wonderful.

I cannot wait for the show to go up. Please come to the Private View on Tuesday 17th of April between 6pm and 8.30pm. You can RSVP here.

If you cannot make this we are holding a ‘Meet the Artist’ event on Saturday the 21st of April between 2pm and 5pm. You can RSVP here for this.

In the mean time the gallery will be open from the 17th to the 22nd of April, between 11am and 7pm Monday to Saturday and 11am to 5pm on Sunday.

The photographers showing are: Myself, Paul Clifford, Jeremy Johns, Chris King, Graham Matthews and Tom Owens.

The artists responding to our work are Annamarie Dzendrowskyj with myself, Michael Wallner with Paul Clifford, Susan Clare with Jeremy Johns, Judith Burrows with Chris King, Lesley James with Graham Matthews and Consuelo Simpson with Tom Owens.

Photographer & Artist Pairings

Blurb by Anna McNay for the press release

Take any one object of study and no two persons’ perceptions of it will ever be
exactly the same. We each have our own, unique viewpoint on everything around
us. A dialogue becomes fruitful, imparting knowledge from one party to the other,
when each participant draws out further aspects of the subject, perhaps overlooked
by their partner.

This exhibition comprises six such nascent dialogues, between six members of the
photographic Rooftop Collective and six responding artists of various media, who,
despite their different approaches, find common ground in their work –thus
providing the seed for a conversation, begun by the artists, but which we hope will
be continued by visitors as well.

See the full press release here

Blurb by Paul Clifford & Michael Wallner

Finding themselves drawn to the geometric shapes, patterns and lines in our everyday surroundings, Paul Clifford and Michael Wallner see the world in similar ways.

Coming together for this exhibition their photography and digital art celebrates the beauty in the mundane and the abstract in everyday life, examining the shape of our urban landscape. It seeks to create something new – familiar yet mysterious.

A concrete wall is seen as a canvas of colours, all decaying paint and rusty pipes; the tunnels and steps of the London Underground become a gallery of patterns and lines that play with our sense of perspective; paving stones turn into confusing collages of colour and texture.

Through their unique interpretations the world around us is presented as a feast of geometric works of art.

Blurb by Toby Deveson & Annamarie Dzendrowskyj

It is often said that a photographer creates an image by starting with everything and narrowing it down to something, while a painter starts with nothing and from it creates something.

It is also said that inside every photographer is a painter wanting to get out.

Perhaps.

What can be said though, with absolute certainty, is that when faced with this marriage between the photographs of Toby Deveson and paintings by Annamarie Dzendrowskyj, it is clear that their work was destined to come together.

While Toby works within the confines of reality and the limitations of the lens and darkroom, he attempts to push these boundaries as far as possible. He explores the realms of what he sees, revelling in the abstract and celebrating the surreal, while his tools and history keep his roots firmly in the world often referred to as ‘real’.

He takes us on a delicious contradiction of a journey. While faced with what we know to be a mere documentation of the landscapes around us, our eyes insist we are seeing another, alien world, full of intoxicating ambiguity.

Then, just when your senses are warmed up and receptive to the hints of magic in the world around us, along come Annamarie’s paintings.

Interpretations of Toby’s photographs or not, they pick up the baton that he has dropped at the borders of what is photographically possible and run headlong into that ambiguous grey area that hovers between presence and absence. They explore the uncanny that lurks within those fleeting moments of a world that is in a constant state of flux, existing in a space that is suggested rather than defined, between what is seen and what is unseen.

Somehow, before even being aware of each other’s existence, the work of these two artists was linked…and now that this collaboration has been made public, after three years of planning, we can only sit back and wonder with glee what will come of it in the future.

So perhaps, after all, there is one last thing that can be said with complete certainty…Annamarie Dzendrowskyj is the embodiment of that painter abandoned within Toby Deveson, freed to wreak havoc on the very essence of our perception of the world around us.