Selected Guest Artists who exhibited at Vegas Gallery:

GERT-JAN AKERBOOMThe young Dutch artist, Gert-Jan Akerboom’s largescale drawings and installations of drawings are, at their most simplistic level, figurative drawings achieved with a deftness of technical skill. However, what Akerboom chooses to highlight –or place in shadow- with this most traditional of artistic crafts often makes a dramatic difference to what we actually see. What, in effect, could be fairly straightforward portraits are transformed into weird and strange vistas with distorted perspective and areas of against-the-grain light and shade that change the normal into the mystical and ritualistic. More recent works have seen the emergence of more full-blown fantastic elements

SARAH BAKER The London-based American artist Sarah Baker is strongly associated with work that takes popular media forms – advertising, television and pop videos – and subverts them to create her own quirky dialogue with the viewer. Whilst Baker grips these forms firmly by the balls and twists, hers is not a discourse of emphatic feminist critique so much as one that is concerned with ambivalence and the lack of conclusion. Sarah Baker appears to eschew a singular political stance, perhaps even celebrating the freedom from needing to have one, in favour of exploring the gaps; in favour of exploring her –and our- seduction by and complicity in glamour, consumption and the world of promised fame and fortune.
 Baker’s works engage directly with the role models and promises made to little girls as they grow up in western societies. In many cases she makes a deeply honest statement about the tension between wanting to embrace them directly and firmly taking a critical distance.

JEMIMA BROWN Identity and an almost obsessive preoccupation with self-identity has long been a feature of Jemima & Dolly Brown's work. In fact, it's central to the body of avatar practice already explored. But in the most recent works, there is a distinct emphasis on 'the family' and its place in individual identities. Groupings of sculptures, drawings, wallpaper and video works have some notion of 'a family' running through them. And of course in Jemima and Dolly's hands, this is never a straightforward enterprise. As individuals the subject of these portraits is self and uncertainty. The sculptural figures now less frequently blend with bits of animals but rather with other humans - each doll is constructed from multiple casting subjects - father/daughter, mother/daughter, girl/boy, boy/girl. Anthropomorphic features resurface here and there: in the drawings, a cat's anatomy finding its way into the human face. -Ken Pratt

BEN COVE Much of Bens' work has an emphasis on process, either by the construction of objects produced to per-form particular tasks, or by setting up working methodologies that seek ambitious outcomes. Objects act as sculptural pieces in their own right and are exhibited alongside evidence of their processes. In ge-neral the investment of time is poured into the ideology of the construction of the objects, not into the results they manifest. The results produced by these tools or approaches may appear to be unsatisfact-ory, yet the failures inherent in the endeavour produce a particular aesthetic or outcome. This tactic seeks to highlight the relationship between ideological systems, or schools of thought, and their mani-festation in material form; in effect the reciprocal dialogue between an ideological theory and its physi-cal materialization. These approaches are derived in part from Bens' initial training in architecture which gave rise to an interest in the relationship between architectural philosophies, social expectation and the effects of rigid ethics on the individual. Consequently much of his work references distinct architectural archetypes or adopts inspirational endeavours. The ambiguity between the critique and the embrace of such doctrines in his practice is a reflection of both his own position in relation to such manifestos and that of a wider field.

LUC DONDEYNE has both feet planted firmly in daily reality, a quality that shows in his paintings: they seem to have an immediately recognizable quality. But appearances can be deceptive; there always seems to be something wrong with the trivial details upon which most of his paintings are based... a vague feeling that has bothered most of us at some point, namely alienation. There is more going on in our daily reality than can be seen at first glance, though we are unable to put a finger on it.Dondeyne’s paintings offer us a way to give definition to that vague feeling: by looking through reality. But looking through things takes effort. And practice. And distance. And patience. And guts. As it happens, painting also has all these qualities. The reality that Luc Dondeyne shows us can only be painted.

NATALIE DOWSE Text by Ken Pratt: The paintings of British painter Natalie Dowse tap into a world that is now almost gone. The melan-cholic imagery of little girls on forlorn seaside fun fairs, of gymkhana girls on ponies and petite gymnasts contorting their androgynous bodies before the glare of international television cameras speak of a world that is already purely nostalgic. Dowse’s work taps directly into the narratives of aspiration and desire pushed at a few generations of British girls through popular media at a certain time, a strangely English response to dealing with the onslaught of the Swinging Sixties. Dowse’ work is acutely aware of the strange contradiction of the world presented to the particular generation of girls in which their sexuality would be apparently contained by sublimating it into a range of suitably sporting, ideally exhausting activities, upon which they could be encouraged to fix their dreams and aspirations. Dowse frames this in terms of examining the use of sport as a form of propaganda used to control and ultimately abuse little girls, an interesting position given the similarities between this construct from the 1960’s and 1970’s and vision of right-wing European thinking in the early 20th century that encou-raged girls to hang around in groups doing callisthenics, simultaneously containing them and strength-ening them for marriage and childbirth.

LISA FLYNN Lisa's practice extends performative gestures into film and video, exploring the body's potential for non-verbal communication. Lisa adopts a playfully satirical approach to exploring the concept of desire through confronting the signifiers imposed onto female sexuality by culture and society. The female body (in her work) often maintains a menacing yet seductive presence. Many of her video pieces flirt with and arouse the viewer's curiosity, simultaneously building a tension that hovers between danger and sexual charge. Lisa's practice continues to respond to a body-obsessed society. She has more recently become inspired by the current high visibility of eating disorders in society, and how women have used control of appetite as a form of symbolic expression for centuries.

ANDY HARPER Andy Harper is an artist based in London. He studied at Brighton Polytechnic, the Royal College of Art and Middlesex University. He co-organises a studio complex in South London, is a member of the Organising Committee for Braziers Workshop and teaches at the City Lit and Goldsmiths College.Whereas earlier works relied on the repetition of a single and simple brush stroke to yield a mono-cultural field, the current works are made up of a more diverse range of marks. This collection of marks and combinations of marks form a kind of dictionary from which, a more fantastical terrain can be created. The function, classification and transportation of plants, reveals numerous political connotations. Representations of plants are obviously not exempt from such readings. How might the composition, organisation or construction of an image question our cultural ordering of nature?

UTA KOGELSBERGER  Text by Ken Pratt: The German photographer Uta Kögelsberger’s work often deals with the landscape filmed under manipulated conditions rather than manipulated photography; long exposure night photography or photography in which unexpected light sources are introduced into the landscape itself. In so doing, Kögelsberger has produced a body of work in which mood or emotive content is often heightened or altered. Her work begs us to question the repre-sentation of landscapes and the staged nature of images of the apparently natural world.In some of these series, the approach is almost documentary: a coincidental decoration of the quintessentially American big rig truck in front of a real mountain ridge highlights the relationships between the apparently natural landscape and its depictions. Uta Kögelsberger has had solo shows at a range of respected venues including Berwick Gymnasium, Berwick-Upon-Tweed; Café Gallery Projects, London and the Glassell Project Space; associate of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She has contributed to many group projects in spaces that include Laurence Miller Gallery, New York; Richard Demarco Foundation, Edinburgh; and ArtFutures 2005/ Bloomberg Space. She will contribute to the upcoming Arles Photo Festival.

KATHERINE LUBAR  The main focus of Katherines' work is the emotional, psychological and visual effects of light as it falls onto and into buildings and other man-made structures. In addition, she is interested in the dynamic between negative and positive space and the two sides of flatness and depth; She likes the idea of space being perceived in different ways at the same time. Her work often hovers on the edge between realism and abstraction; katherine wants the viewer to focus on form rather than content so she emphasizes the abstract planes, shapes, lines and colours over the subject matter. Colour is another vital element to her work: each painting is a study in colour – investigating new colour combinations and the way different colours change each other depending on the colour(s) they are near. She also uses colour to express light – sometimes using the brightness hierarchy of colours to delineate what would, in black and white, be light and shade, but also often playing with nontraditional uses of colour (for example, using cool colours to express light or using warm colours that 'come forward' for background spaces so as to compress the picture plane).Katherine is trying to express through colour the feeling of light – how it feels to us to perceive light, both aesthetically and emotionally.

KATE MAYNE Kate works from photographs she takes during her daily life or travels which she uses to construct a personal sense of time and place in a way that emphasises the personal connections and responses to the sights and experiences that have prompted the paintings. And, like the Impressionists, she has a strong fascination with the way that light affects the modalities of an experience of an object or place.  Working in a way that we readily understand the influences of contemporary approaches to painting arising in Antwerp – her home for the last nine years- she juxtaposes images of interiors, exteriors and the figurative, often working on what might be described as domestic scale canvases. The grouping of her works build up a document of personal subjective meanings and, in turn, allow the viewer to develop his or her own narratives. The subtle references to art historical prompts and sources of inspiration to her as a painter make the possibilities of interior narratives expand beyond the merely novelistic: we can elaborate the clues into a library of sub-vocalised narratives.

JEFF MCMILLAN alters objects or secondhand artworks through a simple but decisive use of paint.  His newest work is a visual mashup of found paintings and studio offcuts with children’s wooden puzzles.  Recent exhibitions include Transformer, Woburn Square Research Centre, London, ArtFutures, Bloomberg Space, London, John Moores 24, The Walker, Liverpool.

ALEX MCQUILKIN makes moving art out of the idea of death. In her DVDs and C-print stills, McQuilkin exposes the raw, tender ties between death, sex, desire and youth. Her work evokes an uncomfortable, undeniable blend of contempt and empathy, as her teenage protagonists (played by her) desperately flaunt their sexual desire, their desirability and their romantic wish for death. With roots in feminist theory, 1990s cultural criticism and popular culture, McQuilkin manages to produce work which avoids jargon and evades any purely intellectual reaction. Like Valie Export, Carolee Schneemann, Paul McCarthy and Sue de Beer, McQuilkin makes art that is like the strongest, sharpest parts of punk rock nailed through layers and layers of solid intellectual foundation.

BETHANY MURRAY Bethany is a London based artist whose work is concerned with the perfor-mative within photography. Coming from a background in performance, she uses this experience in her working with the staged photograph. Her process includes role-play in set frameworks often using herself as performer. The result is a moving through boundaries between photographer and performer and a reworking of the gaze. Her work aims to find a way of looking at images in a fluid, ambiguous way rather than trying to fix down their meaning. The viewer is faced with what is visible and what remains hidden in the image and their own perception of imagined narratives in what they see. She has taught workshops on performance and photography and is currently completing an MA at Central Saint Martins with a scholarship from the AHRC. Her work has been commissioned by private collectors and the University of the Arts Collection.

SAMANTHA MOGELONSKY Samantha is a Canadian artist interested in exploring the relationship between the body and society, through the materiality of objects and forms. She will complete her Master’s of Fine Art degree from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art in 2007. The body fascinates her as it functions in a multitude of roles: as a vehicle for communication, understanding, survival and beauty. Therefore, she begins with the body by making use of materials, as her work is often materially and process driven. Moreover, Samantha is also considering the function, history and format of text and language as a crucial reference point for her practice, as she finds herself more concerned with the isolation of the body within an emerging technological culture: mainly the lack of physical interaction between the individual and the more so-called nostalgic means of communica-tion.  Her work seeks to use the body to address the physicality of language and the written word.

PAULA NAUGHTON Paula's work focuses on the idea that every building is a hub of memories, which turn an architectural construction into an emotionally connected space. Paula explores architectural spaces through the use of the camera lens by digging into specific locations and focusing on individual memories through lived space. This exploration causes a personal emotional engagement with the place. This documents a social loss and records moments of regional locational memory and displacement. It is this human presence and absence that is explored in her practice. Paula creates installations in an attempt to capture moments which plays on the friction between memory and reality and the perception between the past and the present; creating intimate moments of reverie with the viewer.

SIMON NAISH Simons' work is a hybrid of pop art sensibilities and narrative figure painting, exploring the intersection between traditional painting techniques and contemporary forms of representation.His imagined histories are painted on large scale canvases; mock-epics which reflect a broad range of influences from literature and mythology to more contemporary visual sources. Influenced strongly by art-classical themes and motifs and subverting the scale, immediacy and coherent narrative inherent within comic book storytelling, Simons' paintings are labour intensive and large in scale, mirroring the history paint-ing of the past which retold heroic exploits with exaggerated grandeur. Abstract elements are combined with the figurative in a form of painted collage which exaggerates the artifice of the subject matter in order to heighten the sense of the unreal. Playful images of innocence are frequently cast against a backdrop of bodily motifs and themes of violence, dispossession and discord, reflecting a sense of menace and unease.
 

MARCELLE PRICE frequently uses documentary photography and quasi-documentary photography in her practice. More often than not, this is combined with her personal interest in subcultures; their dress codes and the aspirational self-image being conveyed through these codes. At times, she explores the aspiration of these meanings compared with the social realities of their presentation. For example, in various works, she has explored the lives of ageing members of the Rockabilly and Ted subcultures; how they decorate their domestic interiors with the accoutrements of the subculture or head out into public spaces.

MICHAEL PETRY Michael Petry was born in El Paso, Texas (1960) andhas lived in London since 1981. He received a BA atRice University (Houston), an MA at London Guildhall University, and is finishing his PhD at Middle-sex University. He is an internationally exhibited multi-media artist, and co-founder of the Museum of Installation.  He lectures part time at the RoyalCollege of Art and the Royal Academy Schools and was Guest Curator at the KunstAkademi, Oslo, and Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton. Petryco-authored Installation Art (1994), and Installation in the New Millennium (2003), and authored Abstract Eroticism (1996) and A Thing of Beauty is...(1997). The Trouble with Michael, a monograph of his recent artistic practice was published by Art Media Press in 2001.  Petry’s book Hidden Histo-ries: 20th century male same sex lovers in the visual arts (2004) is the first comprehensive survey of its kind and accompanied the exhibition Hidden Histories he curated for The New Art Gallery Walsall. Petry is the Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) London, and the curator of the Royal Academy Schools Gallery.

ANGIE REED is perhaps best-known as a pop performer signed to the "Chicks on Speed" label. Whilst her quirky electropop songs are more than capable of holding their own as pop music, Reed's musical practice is inseparably connected with her work as a visual artist. Always involved in the music scene from adolescence – for example she managed to play bass for "Stereototal" whilst successfully completing her visual art studies in Berlin- Reed's practice has always involved drawing and an interest in animation, an influence of the American pop culture of her youth. During the period that she studied under Katarina Sieverding, she explored a broad range of permutations these various practices. One result was the performance-based works. The other main form was the use of her idiosyncratic drawings –or animations made from them- in making installations. In some cases these have involved turning specific rooms into a form of three-dimensional storyboard. In others, the work is more sculptural, drawing on Arte Povera  ideas of using cheap, found materials to create almost a suggestion of a narrative into which she inserts her video works.Reed has shown in a range of spaces including Kunst Werke (Berlin), KunstBank (Berlin) Wolfsburg Museum (Wolfsburg). MAMA/Boijman's (Rotterdam) and Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati). - text by Ken Pratt

JAMES ROPER James graduated in 2005 from a BA Fine art Painting course at Manchester. His work has shown at the London Art Fair 2007. The compositions in the 'Hypermass' series are constructed using imagery sourced from Manga and Anime which are cut out and then reassembled resulting in a blurring between the figurative and abstract. His work is highly influenced by baroque sculpture in Catholic iconography that uses techniques of exaggeration of folds in robes and cloud formations to express 'spiritual energy'. This ironically manifests as a lustful, extremely physical, materialistic aesthetic which is also apparent in Japanese animation. Forms such as hair or body structure are highly caricatured in anime resulting in a fantastical version of reality, that is almost 'more real than real'.

TAI SHANI The British Israeli artist Tai Shani has made work across a broad range of media including installation and photography, performance and video. Whist performance art has been one her main practices in recent years, she has also engaged in making increasingly complicated and ambitious video projects. In these more recent works, she has evolved her practice into working with complex video material such as in the work, “Take Me Back”. Using music and a visual language strongly reminiscent of British cinema dealing with the magical – one thinks of Jonathan Miller’s “Alice in Wonderland”- and a Hitchcockian suspense, complete with all its Freudian visual cues, she creates visually striking, highly-personal and somewhat opaque viewing experiences. As in her other non-video works, reappraising and playing with images of women and womanhood seems to be a strong preoccupation. Make-up, hosiery, cloth, seduction, repulsion, violence, theatre and mascara might easily be keywords attributed to her work in a databasing exercise.

SUZANNE SIXX Suzanne is a Dutch Artist, working in London, who is interested in the banality of society, the average taste of the audience, the fact that the world is getting more and more impersonal. She uses stereotyped media-images, re-represents these emotionless images in a away that makes them more accessible; the process gives them physicality. Her work is exploring the collective identity, the loss of the individual, and the imposition of the celebrity, their now iconic status, upon our lives. Suzanne Sixx investigates the media influence on people’s personalities, the way that mass-communication affects us. She uses materials that reflect the personalities she portrayed. She used bubblegum to make Britney Spears, and ‘I tongued Damien’ is made of slices of cows tongue and Andy Warhol is made of pink lipstick kiss-prints.

JOHN STARK John is interested in the construction of things, film, literature, painting, how we put the ingredients together…..John Stark: ' During the filming of Rosemary’s Baby Mia Farrow had a nervous breakdown. She turned up on set one day with her hair cut short and the directors had to somehow incorporate this into the film only adding to its surprising narrative. But it is the end scene, the Devil-Child’s eyes and Mia Farrow’s horrified expression upon seeing the little monster that resonates. The horror happens elsewhere, the realm of the imagined, and informs us more about what we don’t know rather than what is known.' His recent paintings attempt to cater for an individual’s love of luxury in the same way as a goldsmith or furniture maker. John looks back to painters like Salvator Rosa, Jan Fyt, Ruisdael, Bercham, and Friedrich. They are loosely referenced in his paintings through an intuitive process alongside various films, postcards, novels, comics and found images. The works themselves waver between the familiar and the unexpected, the melodramatic and the gothic, Romanticism and Death-metal.

CATHARYNE WARD
Cathy Ward’s practice navigates a path of Romantic obsession with mid-European folk-lore, crafts and funerary practices. Through her paintings, photography and sculptural installations she engages in an interpretation of historical folk practices and their relevance in the twenty first century. Her exorbi-tantly detailed drawings of swirls of human hair metaphorically related to Victorian hair wreaths. An in-terest in social-cultural anthropology has led to photographing & collecting ephemera from diverse events & places, which in turn has fuelled the multi directional areas of her work. Cathy works close together with Eric Wright. Their combined work the past decade has involved road trips, investigating historical events now mythic, and assessing the implications of the term Manifest Destiny. Their con-structed forests in the installation Transromantik; and the theatrical panoramic painting in Destiny Manifest-Eden’s End encompass the epic & sentimental, whilst being rooted in significant historical agency. Their work belies a complexity of influences, which feature as metaphors; the dark underbelly of American culture, Pop Culture, European Folk lore, Primitive spiritualism, the black arts, biblical themes & more.

DANIELA WOLFER
Daniela Wolfer graduated from the Staatliche Akademie de Bildende Kunste in Stuttgart, Germany in 1999. In Germany she is well-known as DJ Dirty Daniela. Her fascination for the Hip-Hop and Club Scene is clearly present in her paintings in which she regularly presents DJ prominents from the Stuttgart Clubscene. Other topics that inspire Danielas paintings are the consumer-society, MTV, B-Films and Cartoons. Daniela is represented by Gallery Hammelehle und Ahrens, Cologne and has had many solo exhibitions in both Holland and Germany.