The Bottom Line

The Bottom Line is about being to the point, dwindling something down to it’s essence. Because of the economic climate and technological connectedness our current circumstances emphasise the notion that less is more. Shifting away from the auxiliary to focus on the fundamental, the exhibition investigates physical, conceptual and performative approaches to its meaning in contemporary art practice. 

Photographer Richard Ansett, questions the notion of documentation being a misconstrued or biased truth. In portraiture is the point of view that of the subject or of the creator? In Image_06_083, the expression of his subject is ambiguous, yet seems to change its meaning as the viewer stares at it. Richard Ansett’s work has been selected for multiple Taylor Wessing Portrait Prizes, National Portrait Gallery. He has also won numerous awards in 2010 including, DC FOTOWEEK International, Beyond Likeness: contemporary works from the Portrait Gallery Canada, & the Renaissance Photography Prize. 

Patrick Coyle will be showing new work from his ongoing Spell-Check Stamp series, and delivering a performance outlining ideas raised by the project. Interested in returning the digital graphic back into the analogue context from whence it came, Coyle has created a rubber ink stamp of the zigzag form used in spellchecking software. Through this device, he challenges the notion of what the most vital information is. The attention drawn by this mark designates the unwanted, as opposed to the essential. Patrick Coyle recently completed an MFA in Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London (2010) and has recently exhibited at Flat Time House and the ICA, London. 

Jang-Oh Hong is interested in the subject of transparency as a colour symbolising our modern environment. Specifically, his current focus is on the presence of a hypocrisy in our social actions. Hong is completing a site-specific work in the gallery window focused on this meaning of the transparent. The installation takes the bottom line as a boundary of exposure, concealment and its confusion; questioning our ability to distinguish the difference between reality and fabrication. Hong is a conceptual Korean artist who completed his MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London (2009). He creates stunning multi-media work that has been shown internationally, including exhibitions throughout the UK and Korea. 

Irene Perez Hernandez is concerned with form and in particular with the properties of materials. For the Loop Series she heats and twists steel with the final shape of the work determined only through the process of attempting to manipulate a noncompliant material. By working with and against the material, she allows the result to be essential but also undetermined. Hernandez questions the language of sculpture suggesting an expansion of the sculptural object. She has exhibited in Spain, London, Berlin, at ArtMelboume 09 in Australia and more recently, in at the Modern Art Museum of Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic (2010). 

Using his background in architectural studies and design, JL Murtaugh formulates propositions relative to the cultural- administrative potential of a site–in this case, a future development plan for Cecil Court. His recent projects relate to both our distance and mock-responsibility in civic planning via a synthesis of societal constructs, historical signifiers, architectonic allusions, and phenomenal relationships. Originally from Chicago, Murtaugh is now based in London, completing his MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London (2011). He has produced work internationally in the United States, England, Italy, Iceland, and the United Arab Emirates.