To Me, To You: solo exhibition, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK

Exhibition dates: 22 June – 27 October 2019

To Me, To You was a new commission for BALTIC’s Level 4 gallery based on a story that presents the processes of commissioning, making and exhibiting an artwork.

BALTIC is a major international centre for contemporary art situated on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, England and has welcomed over seven million visitors since opening to the public in July 2002. BALTIC presents a distinctive and ambitious programme of exhibitions and events, and is a world leader in the presentation and commissioning of contemporary visual art.

Housed in a landmark ex-industrial building, BALTIC consists of 2,600 square metres of art space, making it the UK’s largest dedicated contemporary art institution. BALTIC has gained an international reputation for its commissioning of cutting-edge temporary exhibitions. It has presented the work of over 460 artists of 60 nationalities in 220 exhibitions to date.

My playful installations incorporate imagery influenced by illustration and commercial art. My sculptures are often enlarged drawings, used to animate the narrative of his exhibitions. To Me, To You was a new commission for BALTIC’s Level 4 gallery based on a story that presents the processes of commissioning, making and exhibiting an artwork. The installation began with an office-space before moving into consecutive studios where an artist creates a new abstract sculpture. Two art handlers arrive to collect it and so begins a farcical journey to move it to its final destination – an unfamiliar version of BALTIC in a semi derelict high street.

My work references how abstract modern sculpture has sometimes been used to represent the incomprehensibility of art in editorial illustrations in newspapers and magazines. The invented sculpture I used in this exhibition is an affectionate nod to this tradition. By showing the last-minute decisions being taken in a studio, I wittily undermined the significance and authorship of the finished sculpture.

My work could also be found outside the gallery on Level 4 in an image on the lightbox at the ground floor entrance. Here, my characters peered from behind a smashed window with shards of glass spilling onto the floor apparently breaking the two-dimensional plane.