STEW
25 January - 23 February 2008

Co-curated with Andrew Stahl.

The eight artists in the show work in a great variety of ways but all link the meaning of their work to its physicality and its relationship to the space that contains it.

There was no fixed concept behind the starting point for STEW; it is not an illustration of a theory or concept but more a movable feast. All the artists here relate to the idea of duality and reflection, a bipolar relationship between material and meaning but with a civilised route of discovery where what is actually manifested is of both formal and material interest, rich in references, and is a constructive approach to contemporary art and its community.

The neo modernist stubborn games of Eric Bainbridge, the joyous materiality of Phyllida Barlow, the removed world of Kaye Donachie, the rhythmic revelations of Noel Forster, the bulbous clumpy Neil Jeffries, the 'apopalyptic' power of Dawn Mellor, the effusions of Paul Richards and my own Andrew Stahl's contradictory artifice.