PAPER gallery - Paper After All

RCA, Conwy - 28 May - 9 July 2022
PAPER, Manchester - 5 November - 17 December 2022
Saul Hay Gallery, Manchester - 5 November - 20 November 2022

Iain Andrews (Saul Hay), Suzanne Bethell (Saul Hay), Jess Bugler (RCA), Christopher Cook (Saul Hay), Paul Croft (RCA), Lara Davies (PAPER), Lisa Denyer (PAPER), Heather Eastes (RCA), Tim Ellis (PAPER), Richard Gant (RCA), Mark Gibbs (Saul Hay), Noelle Griffiths (RCA), David Hancock (PAPER), John Hedley (RCA), Steven Heaton (Saul Hay), Diana Heeks (RCA), Liam Hopkins (Saul Hay), David Leapman (PAPER), David Lock (PAPER), Martyn Lucas (Saul Hay), Julia Midgley (Saul Hay), James Moore (PAPER), Darren Nixon (PAPER), Ondre Nowakowski (RCA), Anthony Ratcliffe (Saul Hay), Andrew Smith (RCA), Stephen Snoddy (Saul Hay), Ruth Thomas (RCA), Ruby Tingle (PAPER), Casper White (LLE), Hannah Wooll (PAPER)

Paper After All is a collaborative touring exhibition devised by Royal Cambrian Academy in Conwy, LLE in Cardiff, and PAPER and Saul Hay Gallery in Manchester. The exhibition brings together a group of artists associated with each organisation for a dialogue around paper. Each artist has been asked to respond to the idea of assemblage: art that is made by assembling disparate elements – often everyday objects – scavenged by the artist or bought specially in order to create a new body of work for the exhibition.

Assemblage is a process that can be dated back to the Renaissance through the aristocratic practice of curating cabinets of curiosity brimming with oddities as evidence of intellect and cultural distinction. Over time, these practices filtered down to the commonplace use of the mantelpiece as a location of prized possessions. Objects of personal significance and status have appeared in art throughout history, from Dutch memento mori still lives evidencing wealth and status with the caveat of impermanence to Cornell’s Shadow Boxes that contain his voracious wanderlust. In the early part of the 20th Century, artists incorporated items and objects form popular culture into their actual work: Braque and Picasso used collage in their Cubist works, Dadaists Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann created political satire from manipulated newspaper cuttings, and Kurt Schwitters took this to a whole new level with his immersive Merz, a psychological collage of found fragments.

In the post-war years, artists incorporated pop culture images and objects into their world in order to question ideas of representation and reality in media saturated world. In developing an objectivist realism, Pop art took assemblage to new extremes of scale and complexity. Assemblage is a continual presence in our contemporary everyday lives. Social media provides an outlet to share assemblages of curated personal content, communicating taste and cultural capital to our followers. We appropriate continually in order to create our own unique identities. We are cultural magpies picking over and collecting the ephemera of our times in order to find connection and community.

Paper After All invites around 40 artists to create assemblages that scour the present day. The exhibition features collage, sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, video/animation, and Multi-media, as each artist stretches the concept in order to bring assemblage into their diverse practices.

Artwork

Lara Davies
Study 2 to accompany Afterimage
Oil on Paper on Panel
30 x 21cm
2022

Lara Davies
Study 1 for Marmalade
Oil on Paper on Panel
30 x 21cm
2022

Lisa Denyer
Glitch
Acrylic, emulsion, collage, felt tip, filler and costume jewels on found plywood,
32x26cm,
2022

Tim Ellis
A Peaceful World
Copper, enamel and ink on paper and Victorian photograph card
34cm x 24cm x 4cm
2022

David Hancock
Perseus & Andromeda
Watercolour on Paper
42 x 30cm
2022

David Hancock
Laocoon & his Sons
Watercolour on Paper
30 x 42cm
2022

David Leapman
Doctor Cunning's Sufficient Time
Watercolour on paper
28.5x19cm
2022

David Leapman
Winged Pit Former Child
Diamond dust, blue glass and watercolour on handmade paper
19x28cm
2022

David Lock
Misfit (Model)
oil on paper
29.7 x 21cm
2022

James Moore
When you re-spawn inside your own face
Acrylic on Paper
20 x 30cm ( 24 x 34cm framed)
2021

Darren Nixon
Please Display Mingle
Mixed Media
42 x 30cm
2022

Darren Nixon
Mingle Display Please
Mixed Media
42 x 30cm
2022

Darren Nixon
Display Please Mingle
Mixed Media
42 x 30cm
2022

Ruby Tingle
Deep Swamp II
Paper collage on leather
28 x 16 cm
2022

Ruby Tingle
Deep Swamp I
Collage on specialist paper
20 x 35 cm
2022

Casper White
In the car talking to tiktok
Oil on paper (100% cotton oil paper) mounted on board with brass candle holder and candle
25 x 20cm
2022

Hannah Wooll
Play
Paper Clay on found figurine
32 x 20 x 15cm
2022

Hannah Wooll
Sing To Me Sweetly
acrylic ink on found book page
25 x 20cm
2022

Suzanne Bethell
Untitled Assemblage 2
Handpainted paper fragments
38 x 50cm
2022

Christopher Cook
Still Life with Pangolin (after Clara Peeters)
Graphite, resin and oil on coated paper
72 x 102cm
2022

Steven Heaton
History is Within Us (as your place in the world fades away)
Found antique papers on birch cradled panel, lime wood deep box frame 54cm x 44cm
2022