Distance Exhibition

Introductory text written by the exhibition officer for Avenue Gallery, Suzanne Stenning from the Avenue Gallery and used as a press release in 2009. Avenue Gallery is pleased to present ‘Distance’, an exhibition of new work by UK artists Alec Shepley (Head of Lincoln School of Art and Design) and John McClenaghen (Head of Fine Art at Glyndwr University, North Wales). Both artists have exhibited their work nationally and internationally, last showing together in a joint exhibition in Shanghai in 2006. ‘Distance’, comprising assemblages and collages, photographs and drawings, is the result of their continuing long-distance artistic conversation. The presentation of the fragmented work and the presence of dilapidation is tangible in much of their artistic practice. However much of this work focuses on the positive aspects of ruin – on a thing that might be coming into being as opposed to be left to decay. There is evidence of a preoccupation with cutting, placing, re-cutting and re-placing, joining and unjoining, in the collages/assemblages and one look inside either artist’s workshops would reveal an almost neurotic disruption of the ‘outcome’ – telescoping between making and un-making. Could the ‘works’ themselves be ruins – failing in a way to remain intact? Any reading of the ‘complete picture’ is disrupted and we are afforded only partial, distanced view - the artwork/viewer/location relationship is interrupted through a provisionalised engagement - meaning and function are unstable. The pre-occupation with fragmentation and the temporary artwork; cutting and rejoining; doing and un-doing; building and un-building, are attempts to reveal ‘spaces of potential’ – perhaps to prise open and invite occupation of the ‘joins’ or gaps themselves. Avenue Gallery is located in The University of Northampton’s Avenue Campus on St. George’s Avenue, Northampton NN2 6JD. Admission is free. For more information about the exhibition please contact the Gallery on 01604 893046 or email gallery@northampton.ac.uk